[bigwavedave]

> You're saying it costs then 1⅛ cents per search excluding wages and other operating costs.

All I can do is relate what the article says :).

> That seems like they must be vastly over-paying for something? What does that money pay for and who is paying the wages+operational costs?

Well, they use a couple of paid APIs for their queries (as you noted in the edit of your comment). They say in TFA that they're currently breaking even on bare search costs and that the founders are picking up the tab for most of the rest of the expenses.