Want to pay for censys but developing is a massive credit burden

Also don’t close the tab by mistake and reopen it :( 5 (or more) credits gone… ugh

Hey dovholuknf, have you tried using the query assistant in the web UI to help on queries? Using it doesn’t cost any credits and it can often help you skip a lot of steps in troubleshooting query targets and syntax.

This might not fit your exact use case, but you can also apply for research access: https://docs.censys.com/docs/research-access-to-censys-data#/

Finally, I know it’s not also the most timely thing to do, but you can always ask here for help on formatting queries to find what you want. You can also direct message me if you prefer not to post publicly.

it’s just insanely expensive. 5 credits for the simplest of queries is insane. I’ve used the assistant - that’s super helpful but that’s not what I need. I often need to find more, or fewer results based on that query that just ran. AT BEST I can have 20 tries in a month to get it right and that’s just infuriatingly low. I need to use the API which i cannot do. I need to get pagination right which i cannot do at all because if i page 5 pages of data i’ll be basically out of credits.

It’s just so infuriatingly punitive, the credit system and the lack of ANY api access on the free tier. I literally want to give Censys money for ongoing analysis but censys just makes it so friggin hard. Really, something needs to be done about it imo. I’ve also filled out the sales form to hopefully get some sort of trial where i can do what i want, figure out what it’ll cost, budget for it, get approval etc. 

Thanks for the reply, I know you’re trying to help. I wish it were just getting the queries wrong but that little helper thing is great for that (a much needed improvement). I probably need 1000 credits to make sure all my automation works. That’s why giving people like me access to a SLOW, older database would probably be good enough for what I want to do. Hell, even if it was nothing but mock data I could seed into the mock that’d work… 

I like what censys does, it’s just so hard to get started at this time...

Totally understood. I’ll pass your feedback on to the team.

For what it’s worth - and this is probably less useful to you as you’re executing searches - lookup API endpoints for assets (get host/web prop/cert and retrieve multiple hosts/web props/certs) can be used by Free users.

Yah thanks. I used to use the v2 API and we had stuff that worked. Then v3 came along and busted our stuff which was a bummer…. Yeah you’re right, the API endpoints for assets isn’t super useful for me at this time since I need to find the endpoints I care about FIRST :)

Please pass it along. I’m engaged with sales now so hopefully I’ll get a satisfactory way forward tomorrow. Cheers