Perplexity Pricing: Pro, Max, API Costs and Free Limits

Last Updated: October 11, 2026

Perplexity Pro costs $20 a month or $200 a year ($17 a month, billed annually), and Perplexity Max costs $200 a month or $2,000 a year. The free plan gives 3 Pro searches a day. Enterprise Pro starts at $40 per seat, and the API is billed separately, from $5 per 1,000 searches. Prices come from Perplexity’s own pages, checked October 2026.

Perplexity Max costs ten times what Pro does, and Perplexity does not publish the usage limits that justify the extra $180 a month. Add a separate API bill, Enterprise seats and a student tier, and Perplexity pricing is harder to read than it looks.

This guide lays out every plan and what it costs, using Perplexity’s own pricing, help center and API documentation. It also puts a dollar value on the credits, shows when the API beats a subscription, and explains the cancellation and refund rules. If you want to know what the product does before paying, start with our guide to what Perplexity AI is.

💡 Not sure which AI tool is actually right for your business?

Get the free guide, Which AI Tool Should You Actually Use? — a straightforward breakdown of the leading AI tools to help you pick the right one for your needs.

Subscribe to AI Business Weekly for the guide, plus daily coverage of AI trends, acquisitions, and product launches.

Get the Free Guide →

Perplexity costs $0 for Free, $20 a month for Pro and $200 a month for Max. Paying annually brings Pro to $17 a month ($200 a year) and Max to about $167 a month ($2,000 a year). Enterprise Pro starts at $40 per seat per month. Perplexity’s public plan page lists only the annual-billing prices.

Perplexity’s pricing page shows Pro at “$17/month, billed annually” and Max at “$167/month, billed annually,” with no monthly figure beside them. The $20 monthly price for Pro comes from third-party guides (CloudZero, September 2026, and Mem0, October 2026). The $200 monthly price for Max is stated on Perplexity’s own Max help page. Annual billing works out to about 17% off on both plans, and Max annual billing is only available on the web app.

Sources: Perplexity’s pricing page and Perplexity’s Max help article, checked October 2026. Perplexity changed plans several times in 2026, so confirm the live page before you pay.

Free includes 3 Pro searches a day and 1 research query a month. Pro adds model selection, Deep Research, image generation and file and app creation at higher weekly and monthly limits. Max adds the highest limits, frontier models and priority access to new features. Perplexity does not publish exact Pro or Max numbers.

Perplexity says it runs models from OpenAI, Google, Anthropic and NVIDIA, and lets Pro and Max users choose which one answers. The limits for Pro and Max are described only as “average use” and “advanced use,” so there is no number to compare. That is the main gap in Perplexity’s pricing: you pay for a limit you cannot see in advance.

Sources: Perplexity’s plan comparison in its help center and the pricing page. The Computer credit figures come from the pricing page. For the product behind them, see our guide to Perplexity Computer.

Yes. Perplexity AI is free to use, with cited answers on every search. The free plan caps Pro searches at 3 a day and research queries at 1 a month, and it excludes advanced models, image generation and file or app creation.

Three Pro searches a day is about 90 a month, which is enough for casual use but not for daily research. Perplexity’s help center says free file uploads are “limited” without giving a number.

Perplexity also runs promotions and trials for Pro. Its billing FAQ says that unless you cancel before a trial ends, “your subscription will auto-renew at the standard rate.” Trials need a valid credit or debit card, which is where many surprise charges start. For other no-cost options, see our guide to the best free AI tools.

Source: Perplexity’s Billing FAQ for Pro subscribers and the plan comparison above.

Perplexity Pro is worth it if you do research or analysis weekly and want to pick between models. At $20 a month it adds Deep Research, premium data sources and file creation. If you search occasionally, the free plan’s 3 Pro searches a day is enough, and the $200 annual price only pays off with steady use.

Pro and Max also come with bonus Computer credits, and credits have a published dollar value. Perplexity’s help center prices them at 100 credits per dollar, according to CloudZero and Mem0. On that rate, the numbers work out like this:

These dollar figures are derived from the 100-credits-per-dollar rate and are not shown by Perplexity itself. They show two things. Pro’s 4,000 bonus credits are a one-time grant worth about $40, which CloudZero says does not renew if you cancel and resubscribe. And Max’s recurring credits cover about half of its $200 price, so the other half pays for higher limits and model access.

Max is worth considering only if you run Computer tasks heavily or hit Pro’s limits every week. For most people, the step from Free to Pro is the one that matters. A Max account also has a monthly credit spending cap of $200 by default, adjustable up to $5,000, CloudZero reports.

Perplexity Enterprise Pro starts at $40 per seat per month or $400 per seat per year. Eligible education and nonprofit institutions pay $30 per seat monthly or $300 annually. Enterprise Max is priced higher, with third-party guides reporting $325 per seat per month, but Perplexity’s help page does not state that figure.

The Enterprise tiers differ mainly in limits, which Perplexity does publish:

Enterprise Max has ten times the limits of Enterprise Pro for roughly eight times the listed price, if the third-party $325 figure is right. API use is billed separately on every Enterprise plan. Contact Perplexity for a quote, since final pricing for larger teams goes through sales.

Source: Perplexity’s plan comparison. For how AI subscriptions compare across vendors, see our AI pricing guide.

The Perplexity API is billed separately from any subscription and has no free credits. Search API requests cost $5 per 1,000, or $1 per 1,000 in fast mode. Sonar models charge per token plus a request fee, from $1 per million tokens on Sonar to $3 input and $15 output on Sonar Pro.

Here is what that means for one query. A Sonar request with 1,000 input tokens and 500 output tokens at low search context costs about $0.0065, which is $0.0015 in tokens plus a $0.005 request fee. The same request on Sonar Pro at medium context costs about $0.02. These are my own estimates from the published rates, and real costs depend on answer length and search depth.

On those estimates, $20 buys about 3,000 Sonar queries or about 1,000 Sonar Pro queries, so the API is cheaper than a subscription only if you need programmatic access or run a few thousand queries. The Agent API adds tool fees on top of model tokens, such as $0.0025 per web search. Subscription plans do not include API use.

Source: Perplexity’s API pricing documentation, checked October 2026.

Yes. Perplexity Education Pro costs $10 a month for verified students, with verification through SheerID. It includes everything in Pro plus Perplexity Computer and Learn Mode, and the discount applies automatically once verified. That is half the standard Pro monthly price.

Perplexity’s own comparison page describes the Pro searches as “unlimited” in the text but lists weekly limits in its table, and does not resolve the difference. Treat the exact search cap as unconfirmed. Education Pro does not appear on the public pricing page, which is why many people never find it. If you are a student, check the help center page before paying full price.

Source: Perplexity’s plan comparison.

Cancel on the web under Account, then Manage Plan, then Cancel Subscription. You keep paid access until the billing cycle ends, then the account reverts to Free. Refunds are discretionary: Perplexity “may issue a refund” if a request meets its guidelines, which the page does not publish.

A few rules catch people out:

Perplexity’s Max help page lists refund windows by region: 14 days in the EU, UK and Turkey, 7 days in South Korea and Brazil, and 24 hours for monthly plans or 48 hours for annual plans elsewhere. That page is about Max upgrades, so confirm the window on your own plan before relying on it. Perplexity accepts Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Cash App, Google Pay, Apple Pay and ACH.

Because annual plans are paid upfront, try the monthly plan first, then switch once you know you will keep using it. Sources: Perplexity’s help center on canceling a subscription and the billing FAQ.

Perplexity pricing runs $0 for Free, $20 a month for Pro and $200 a month for Max, with annual billing taking about 17% off, as of October 2026. Enterprise Pro starts at $40 per seat, students pay $10 and the API is billed separately from $5 per 1,000 searches. For most people the useful decision is Free versus Pro, and the free plan’s 3 Pro searches a day covers light use. Max suits heavy Computer users, since its recurring credits cover about half its price. Check the live plan page before paying, because Perplexity changed its plans several times this year.

Perplexity Pro costs $20 a month or $200 a year, which is about $17 a month when billed annually, as of October 2026. Perplexity’s own page shows only the annual-billing price, and the $20 monthly figure comes from third-party guides. Students can get Education Pro for $10 a month.

Yes. The free plan includes cited answers, 3 Pro searches a day and 1 research query a month. It excludes advanced models, image generation and file or app creation. Paid plans start at $20 a month, and a free trial requires a card and renews automatically unless you cancel before it ends.

Perplexity Max costs $200 a month or $2,000 a year, according to Perplexity’s Max help page. That works out to about $167 a month on annual billing. Max adds the highest usage limits, frontier models, 10,000 monthly credits and priority support. Annual billing for Max is only available on the web app.

The API is billed separately from subscriptions and has no free credits. Search API requests cost $5 per 1,000, or $1 per 1,000 in fast mode. Sonar charges $1 per million tokens plus a request fee of $5 to $12 per 1,000, and Sonar Pro charges $3 input and $15 output.

Yes. Perplexity Education Pro costs $10 a month for verified students and educators, using SheerID verification. It includes everything in Pro, plus Perplexity Computer and Learn Mode. The discount is applied automatically after verification, but it does not appear on the public pricing page.

Refunds are discretionary. Perplexity says it “may issue a refund” if a request meets its guidelines, and the billing page does not publish them. Its Max help page lists regional windows, such as 14 days in the EU and UK and 24 to 48 hours elsewhere. Cancel before renewal to avoid another charge.

By Sameer Khan

AI-assisted. Researched, reviewed, and edited by Sameer Khan before publication.