Algolia is mind blowing. We are replacing mysql backend with algolia and its bringing down latencies from 300-400 ms down to 10-20 ms. Things like out of the box multi location support and full text search etc makes algolia compelling choice.
Did you try Solr or ElasticSearch before deciding to go with Algolia? Comparing them to MySQL is a bit of an apples/orange comparison, I would like to know how they compare to other search platforms.
All this at $49/ month is actually a good deal!
I wish them well.