As a vendor manager, I don't assume the liability on a search would just be passed through to the abstractor. 

What we make on a search is rarely equal to and never more than what we're paying out and sometimes it's frankly so slim as to be not worth my while but we eat it sometimes to keep the relationship.   As a middle man, I can tell you we're sometimes billed for what the county charges, sometimes more.  We don't really haggle nor do we nickel and dime over copies.  My only complaint is when we're billed for copies we do not ask for.  Some of our clients are cheap - they want only the deed... not much I can do to help defray the abstractors time/gas etc when these title companies don't want more than a deed!

If that guy was willing to pay $80 for a search he's billing out at $95, he's only making $15 assuming he actually pays you but that's a whole different topic.