Microsoft has announce changes to the price of its Bing Search APIs across all markets. The updated pricing will take effect from May 1, 2023, and the price increase will apply to all markets, such Image Search, Video Search, News Search, Visual Search, Entity Search, Web Search, Autosuggest, and Spell Check.
In a statement, microsoft spokesperson states that “We periodically assess the value and pricing of our services to meet market demands and align the pricing of our products and services with customer consumption trends and preferences.”
Looking at the new price of the Bing Search APIs across all market, it was observed that it was 3x to 10x the initial price.
In the S1 category that allows 250 transactions per second, the new pricing for Web Search stands at $25 per 1,000 transactions compared to just $7 per 1,000 transactions.
In the same category, Bing Image Search’s new pricing stands at $25 per 25,000 transactions compared to just $7 for the same number of transactions.
In the S2 category, that allows 100 transactions per second, new Web Search pricing stands at $15 per 1,000 transactions compared to just $3 for the same number of transactions. Pricing for Bing Autosuggest for the same category has been raised from $3 per 10,000 transactions to $15. Also when compared S3 to S9, this changes also cuts across each category, the details is available here
Aftermath of the announcement, many users of the microsoft Bing Search APIs reacted, some saying that microsoft is trying to recover its $10 billion investment in OpenAI to improve its search engine in order to compete favorably with google, who currently controls 91% share of the internet search engine market globally, as compared to Bing’s with 2.95% as of November 2022, according to Source.
However, microsoft already stated that “The new pricing model reflects more accurately the technology investments Bing continues to make to improve Search, including newer experiences such as Bing Visual Search and Bing Entity Search,”