Agentic search and discovery isn’t a “nice-to-have” anymore. It’s where customers decide whether they’re staying, buying, or bouncing. And when traffic is expensive and attention spans are short, the economics of search matter as much as the experience.

That’s why we’re excited to share a new commissioned Forrester Consulting study, The Total Economic Impact™ of Algolia. In the study, Forrester Consulting found that organizations achieved a 213% return on investment (ROI) over three years, with a payback period of less than six months. The study also reports $3.1M in net present value (NPV) over three years for the composite organization.

Real customers behind the numbers

Forrester based their analysis on interviews with four B2C enterprises using Algolia, then modeled the results as a composite ecommerce organization doing $600M in annual revenue and handling 607.5M searches per year. Before Algolia, these teams were relying on legacy or internally built search solutions that struggled with relevance, scale, and the day-to-day work required to keep search performing.

For ecommerce businesses in particular, better search relevance and discovery turns into more revenue. Forrester attributes $12M in annual revenue growth to improved search relevance, discovery, and merchandising—value that compounds when teams can iterate quickly and keep experiences aligned with customer intent.

But the study doesn’t treat this as “revenue only.” It also captures the operational side of modern search—because the teams running ecommerce sites don’t just need better results, they need less friction. Forrester quantifies up to 35% time savings for merchandising teams (worth more than $1.8M over three years), along with 23% time savings for marketing and 12% for sales.

And for engineering, the story is about leverage. The study notes organizations were able to redeploy 1.5 developer FTEs toward higher-value initiatives—work that moves the business forward instead of keeping the lights on.

Get your copy today

If you’re pressure-testing your current search setup—or building the internal case to modernize—this TEI study is a useful benchmark. It lays out the assumptions, the cost model, and how Forrester connected improvements in search and merchandising to measurable financial outcomes. Download the full Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact™ of Algolia study to see the complete breakdown of benefits, costs, and payback.