[divmain]

It is a bit above your price point, but I have been using Kagi.com (not affiliated, just impressed). They're in beta, but will charge ~$10 once they go GA. Like you, I tried DuckDuckGo for awhile, but resorted to g! so often that I started using it for everything out of habit.

In contrast, Kagi provides Google-quality results mosts of the time, better-than-Google semi-often, and worse-than-google rarely. They support g!, but I only use it a couple of times a week, usually for site-specific searches.

Additionally, I really like that I am their customer and not their product - incentives are aligned for them to continue respecting my privacy and preferences.

[rmbyrro]

I've been quite happy with DDG, serves about 80% of my needs.

The other 20% I resort to Google are mostly things with a geographical/country context, which DDG really sucks and Google excels.

[freediver]

If you are OK with using Google, why not simply use Google for 100% of your needs?

[6510]

One only uses Google services if one absolutely needs to. Google on the other hand never needs you. You are absolutely unnecessary and super easy to replace. Whichever you chose, the next search engine really needs our queries. If we give them enough they might be able to create a competitive product. If they do google will dramatically improve. I'm sure they have plenty of ideas, the incentive is just not there.