Beacon
Site and product search that isn't billed by the keystroke.
Useful when replacing: Algolia's per-search meter
Component · not sold separately
This one has no price.
Beacon is something we build with, not something we sell. It ships inside a sprint, and it's part of why a sprint costs $990 a week instead of a quarter's salary. We'd rather say that plainly than put a number on it and imply a support promise we haven't made.
Need it? It comes with the build. If it ever stands on its own, it'll get a price on the pricing page like everything else.
Inside Beacon
The problem
Search is the purest per-use meter in your stack. Algolia bills roughly $0.50–$1.75 per thousand searches, charges again for the records you store, and bills overages at 1.5–2× the standard rate when you exceed your commitment — so the better your search works, the more it costs you, and a good day for your traffic is a bad day for your bill. Enterprise commitments start around $50,000/year. The perverse part: search-as-you-type is the feature they recommend, and it fires a billable request on every keystroke.
How Beacon solves it
Search-as-you-type without the meter
Typo tolerance, instant results, faceting, synonyms, and relevance tuning — the whole modern search experience, with no per-request billing. Every keystroke is free because it runs on your server, so you can build the fast thing instead of the cheap thing.
Keyword and semantic in one index
Classic full-text ranking where exact terms matter, vector search where meaning does, and hybrid where you want both. It shares its retrieval core with Recall, so a product search and a RAG pipeline stop being two separate vendors.
Relevance you can actually inspect
See why a result ranked where it did, tune it against a golden set, and catch regressions before your customers do. Relevance is a business decision — it shouldn't live inside a black box you rent.
Your index, your disks
Runs on Postgres in your own infrastructure. Your catalog and your visitors' queries — which are the single most honest record of what customers want — stay yours, and never train anyone's model.
Delivery terms — stated precisely
How Beacon is delivered, what you control, and where the boundaries sit.
Source included · MIT
Run it yourself or use optional managed hosting.
Data and hosting
Deploy in your cloud or use the stated optional managed-hosting plan. Data location and operator access are agreed before production use.
Compliance boundary
Residency, controls, and regulatory requirements are implementation decisions documented in the selected plan or delivery scope.
Built on
Beacon — the questions buyers ask
Who owns the code and IP?
For a Build Sprint, the repository, deployment assets, and work-product IP described in the SOW are handed over to you. Pre-existing products retain the licence shown on their product page; hosted services remain services. We state that boundary before work starts.
What happens if a sprint misses its scope?
We finish it. Fixed price means the risk of estimation is ours, not yours — a missed scope item is completed without a new invoice. Changes you request are re-scoped explicitly, so the line between 'our miss' and 'new ask' stays honest.
How do time zones work with a pod in India?
Every engagement includes 4+ hours of overlap with US or EU working hours. Async by default — written updates, weekly clickable demos — and meetings only when they earn the slot. You'll never chase a status report.
How is our data and code kept secure?
Work happens in your repos and your infrastructure wherever possible — we hold the minimum access needed, revoked at handover. NDAs are standard on request, and everything we self-host for you runs behind your keys, not ours.
How fast can you actually start?
Scoping takes a day; most sprints start within a week of sign-off. Pods are deliberately small and senior, so your start date is confirmed in the sprint plan — not left floating.
Do we need a retainer afterwards?
No — that's the point. A sprint ends with handover docs and training. If you want us to keep maintaining what we built, that's an optional flat monthly add-on you can cancel any month, because the software keeps working without us.
Own Beacon, don't rent it.
See the price, deploy on your infrastructure, keep the code. Or scope a sprint and we'll customise it and hand it over.