Perplexity is an AI answer engine that searches the web and cites its sources, orchestrating its own Sonar model alongside models from several other AI companies. It runs on a Free plan plus Pro, Max and two Enterprise tiers, and what decides whether it suits you is how much of its Computer agent, deep research and premium model access you need, since each expands plan by plan.
What is Perplexity?
Perplexity is made by Perplexity AI, Inc. It runs on the web, as a Windows and Mac desktop app, and on iOS and Android.
What you can do with Perplexity
Perplexity orchestrates its own Sonar 2 model alongside GPT-5.6 Terra, Gemini 3.7 Flash, Claude Sonnet 5, Kimi K3, GLM 5.3, Grok 4.6 and Nemotron 3 Ultra on both the Pro and Max plans, with GPT-5.6 Sol and Claude Opus 5 available only on Max. The Free plan only offers automatic "Best" model selection, without a manual model picker.
Every plan returns answers with inline citations to sources. Deep research compiles longer, sourced reports with more sources, charts and reasoning, and is available from the Pro plan up.
File uploads are limited on the Free plan and rise to 10 times that on Pro, with a further increase on the Enterprise plans. Perplexity can also generate and edit images on the web, mobile and desktop apps, and its Voice Assistant is available on iOS and Android.
Perplexity Computer is an autonomous agent that completes tasks and workflows and can act on a schedule, running in a cloud sandbox; it is included on the Pro plan and reaches maximum usage on Max, and it can also fix code inside that sandbox. Brain, its persistent memory system, builds a working model of your projects, people and files to give Computer context across sessions. Projects give individual users a dedicated workspace to organize research and tasks.
Perplexity connects to more than 400 app connectors in total, including Google Drive, Gmail, Outlook, Google Calendar, Notion, Slack, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, Asana, Jira, Confluence, HubSpot, Salesforce, GitHub and Linear.
Working with other people
Team collaboration inside Projects, with unlimited collaborators, is an Enterprise Pro and Enterprise Max feature; Projects on Pro and Max are for individual use. Enterprise Pro and up also add single sign-on, and SCIM provisioning is available under contract. Perplexity also sells a developer API as a separate product.
Perplexity pricing: what each plan gives
The Free plan costs nothing and gives citations in every answer, access to the top AI models through automatic "Best" selection, limited weekly usage of those models, and limited Pro Search.
Pro costs $20 a month ($17 a month billed annually) and adds expanded Computer access, deep research and a choice of AI models. Max costs $200 a month ($167 a month billed annually) and adds GPT-5.6 Sol, Claude Opus 5, maximum Computer usage, and 10,000 monthly credits. Enterprise Pro costs $34 a month per seat billed annually, and Enterprise Max costs $271 a month per seat billed annually.
Privacy and security
On the Free, Pro and Max plans, AI data retention is on by default, and this data can be used to train Perplexity's models unless you turn that off in settings. On Enterprise Pro and Enterprise Max, your data is never used to train Perplexity's models, and third-party model providers are barred by contract from training on any Perplexity data on any plan.
Perplexity has appointed VeraSafe as its GDPR Article 27 representative for the EU and UK. Enterprise Pro and Enterprise Max come with SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA, GDPR and PCI DSS compliance and single sign-on.
Support is by email, live chat is on Pro and up, and the Enterprise plans add direct support on Discord.
Who Perplexity suits
Perplexity suits people who want a cited, web-searching AI assistant with access to models from several AI companies in one place, and who will use its Computer agent, deep research or wide connector library enough to justify a paid plan.
It suits less well anyone who wants their queries kept out of model training without changing a setting, since that is on by default below the Enterprise plans. It also suits less well small teams on Pro, since shared Projects with collaborators start on Enterprise Pro.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Perplexity cost?
The Free plan costs nothing. Pro costs $20 a month ($17 a month billed annually) and Max costs $200 a month ($167 a month billed annually); Enterprise Pro and Enterprise Max cost $34 and $271 a month per seat, billed annually.
Which AI models does Perplexity include?
Perplexity's own Sonar 2 model runs alongside GPT-5.6 Terra, Gemini 3.7 Flash, Claude Sonnet 5, Kimi K3, GLM 5.3, Grok 4.6 and Nemotron 3 Ultra on Pro and Max, with GPT-5.6 Sol and Claude Opus 5 available only on Max. The Free plan only offers automatic model selection.
What can Perplexity Computer do?
Computer is an autonomous agent that completes tasks and workflows, can act on a schedule, and runs in a cloud sandbox where it can also fix code. It is included on Pro and reaches maximum usage on Max.
Does Perplexity train on my data?
On the Free, Pro and Max plans, your data can be used for training unless you turn that off in settings. On Enterprise Pro and Enterprise Max, your data is never used to train Perplexity's models.
