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.