What is Perplexity?
Search that answers with sources, plus deep research.
Who is Perplexity best for?
Perplexity is best for people who want quick web answers with sources they can check, from students to analysts.
Answers you can check
Every answer carries inline citations, so you can open the page behind each claim instead of trusting a bare chatbot reply.
Company and market research
Deep research, plus PitchBook, Statista and S&P Capital IQ data on paid plans, suits finance and market work.
Several AI models on one bill
Pro and Max let you pick a preferred model per question from ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and others.
Teams with strict IT rules
Enterprise plans promise no training on your data and add SSO, user permissions and SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA compliance.
How much does Perplexity cost?
Perplexity is free for limited daily use, and its paid plans cost $20 a month for Pro or $200 a month for Max, with team plans from $34 per seat a month billed yearly.
- Limited daily use, best for simple questions
- Citations in every answer
- Basic AI models
- Deep research and higher usage limits and memory
- Choose between top AI models
- Expanded Computer access with 4,000 bonus credits
- 10,000 Computer credits a month plus 35,000 bonus credits
- Frontier AI models and the highest usage limits
- Priority access to new features
For teams, Enterprise Pro is $34 and Enterprise Max $271 per seat per month, both billed yearly; they add SSO, user permissions, a guarantee of no training on your data and SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA and GDPR compliance, with 500 and 15,000 Computer credits per seat a month. Organisations that need extra security controls can ask for custom pricing. Pro and Max also add premium sources such as PitchBook, Statista and S&P Capital IQ. Full pricing on perplexity.ai. We checked these prices on .
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What are the best Perplexity alternatives?
Three tools on Recaply do Perplexity's job. All three are open source, so you can run them on your own server.
SciraOpen SourceChoose it when you want open source code you can run and change yourself.
KhojOpen SourceChoose it when you want cited web answers from a self-hosted app that can also switch to offline open-weight models
Co-STORMOpen SourceChoose it when you want a free multi-agent tool that researches a topic with you and writes a long cited report.
More open source alternatives
See all
Articles about Perplexity
Two of our articles cover Perplexity, with every price checked on the makers' own pages.
The best AI tools for students start with ChatGPT's study mode, free on every plan. Seven tools that help you learn, with student prices and school rules.
Best AI tools for research papers and literature reviews in 2026BestThe best AI tools for research: Elicit for literature reviews, Consensus to check a claim and Gemini Notebook for free. Sources and prices compared.
Questions about Perplexity
What is the difference between Perplexity Pro and Max?
Perplexity Max costs $200 a month against $20 for Pro and is built for heavy, sustained work. It adds 10,000 Computer credits a month, frontier reasoning models, higher limits on deep research, file uploads and asset generation, more video creation and priority access to new features.
Who is Perplexity for?
Perplexity is best for people who want quick web answers with sources they can check, from students to analysts.
Is Perplexity free?
Yes. Perplexity has a free plan: limited daily use, best for simple questions.
How much does Perplexity cost?
Perplexity's paid plans are Pro at $20 per month and Max at $200 per month.
Is there an open source alternative to Perplexity?
Yes. Scira, Khoj, Co-STORM and Morphic and 2 more are open source tools that do the same job, so you can run your own.
What are the best Perplexity alternatives?
The closest alternatives on Recaply are Scira, Khoj and Co-STORM.
Where can I try Perplexity?
On its official website, perplexity.ai.
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