Perplexity Pricing 2026: Free, Pro, Max, Enterprise and Sonar API Costs
Pro is $20 or $17 annual and Max is $200, but Pro's Computer credits are a one-time bonus. Plan tables, Sonar API rates and real per-answer costs inside.
Perplexity sells three consumer tiers. Free is $0 with basic models and citations on every answer. Pro is $20 a month, or $17 a month when billed annually. Max is $200 a month. Enterprise seats and education pricing exist but the detailed figures are not on the public pricing page. The Sonar API is billed separately per million tokens: Sonar is $1 in and $1 out, Sonar Pro $3 in and $15 out, with extra charges for search queries, citations and reasoning.
Key Takeaways
- Pro is $20 a month, or $17 a month on annual billing. Max is $200 a month. Free is genuinely usable for casual search.
- Pro includes Perplexity Computer with a one-time 4,000 bonus credits; the recurring monthly credit allowance is a Max feature (10,000 monthly plus 35,000 bonus). Heavy Computer use is what pushes people to Max.
- Users on r/perplexity_ai report the best OpenAI and Anthropic models and recurring Computer credits moved behind Max in 2026; treat Pro as strong search plus limited agent access, not an all-models pass.
- The Sonar API is separate from any subscription. Sonar costs $1 per million tokens in and out; Sonar Pro is $3/$15 plus $14 to $22 per 1,000 multi-step searches.
- Krater runs Sonar on the same credit meter as Claude, GPT and Gemini. In our run, a Sonar answer cost 0.2 to 1.09 credits; Sonar Pro is also available on the same meter.
Perplexity plans at a glance
| Plan | Price | What is added |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Search with citations, basic AI models, limited weekly usage |
| Pro | $20 a month, $17 a month billed annually | Expanded Computer access, 4,000 one-time bonus credits, Deep Research, top AI models, model picker, PitchBook and Statista sources, file and app search, Model Council |
| Max | $200 a month | Maximum Computer usage, 35,000 bonus plus 10,000 recurring monthly credits, frontier models, higher Deep Research and upload limits, more video generation, priority features |
| Enterprise | Not published on the pricing page | Seat licensing for organizations; details via sales |
Source: perplexity.ai/hub/pricing, read 27 September 2026. Finout reports Education Pro at $10 a month via SheerID verification, Enterprise Pro at $40 a seat and Enterprise Max at $325 a seat; none of those figures appear on the vendor pricing page we rendered, so treat them as reported, not confirmed.
Pro at $20 or $17: what it includes, and what moved to Max
Pro is the plan the search volume is about. You pay $20 a month, or $17 a month if you commit to a year up front. For that you get the good models, Deep Research, a model picker per query, premium data sources, and Perplexity Computer with 4,000 bonus credits. The detail most pages miss: those 4,000 Computer credits are a one-time bonus on Pro. The recurring monthly credit allowance (10,000 per month on top of a 35,000 bonus) is listed under Max. The rendered pricing page confirms the split.
That distinction is the live complaint. A r/perplexity_ai thread from mid-September 2026 titled "Perplexity Pro is an absolute joke now" argues that Pro quietly became a sampler: the strongest OpenAI and Anthropic models moved behind Max, Computer tasks burn hundreds to over a thousand credits each, and after the one-time bonus is spent there is nothing left inside the subscription. These are user reports, not vendor statements, but the vendor page does confirm that Pro carries no recurring Computer credit allowance.
Max at $200
Max is ten times Pro's monthly price and is aimed at sustained agent work rather than search. It adds the recurring monthly Computer credits, frontier model access, several Model Council runs per month, and higher ceilings on Deep Research, file uploads and video generation. If your workflow is "research agent that runs all day", Max is the only tier built for it. If your workflow is "better Google", Max is overkill.
Education and Enterprise
Perplexity offers Education and Enterprise tracks, but the public pricing page we rendered does not publish their prices. Finout's September 2026 roundup reports Education Pro at $10 a month (SheerID-verified), Enterprise Pro at $40 per seat per month, and Enterprise Max at $325 per seat, with an edu and nonprofit Enterprise Pro at $30 per seat. All Enterprise figures here are reported by Finout, not published on the vendor page; confirm on the live page or with Perplexity sales before budgeting.
Sonar API pricing
| Model | Input per 1M tokens | Output per 1M tokens | Extra charges |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sonar | $1 | $1 | Search queries billed separately |
| Sonar Pro | $3 | $15 | Pro Search surcharge $14 to $22 per 1,000 depending on context size |
| Sonar Reasoning Pro | $2 | $8 | $3 per 1,000 reasoning queries |
| Sonar Deep Research | $2 | $8 | $2 per 1,000 citations plus $5 per 1,000 search queries |
| Search API | - | - | $5 per 1,000 searches ($1 fast mode) |
Source: docs.perplexity.ai pricing, read 27 September 2026. Tool prices on the same page: web_search $0.0025 per call, fetch_url $0.0005, sandbox $0.03 per session.
Perplexity vs ChatGPT on price
Perplexity Pro at $20 a month sits at the same price point as ChatGPT Plus at $20. They buy different things: Perplexity is a search product with citations on every answer and a metered agent layer; ChatGPT is a general chat assistant with a broad app ecosystem. Max at $200 competes with ChatGPT Pro's higher tiers rather than Plus. Neither is cheaper in absolute terms at the headline level; the comparison is about what the $20 buys.
Sonar on Krater, per answer
Krater carries Sonar natively in the same chat that also runs Claude, GPT and Gemini, billed per answer in credits. Sonar Pro is available on the same meter for heavier queries. We sent the same three short prompts to Sonar on 27 September 2026 and read the billed amounts from the credit ledger.
| Model | Prompt | Credits | Seconds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sonar | Explain what an API rate limit is in one short paragraph. | 1.09 | 7 |
| Sonar | Write a two-sentence product description for a reusable water bottle. | 0.20 | 7 |
| Sonar | List three differences between a hostel and a hotel. | 0.20 | 7 |
At Pro plan value ($20 for 1,500 credits) a short Sonar answer costs a cent or two. The structural difference matters more than the cents: the same $20 also includes Claude, GPT, Gemini, image and video models on one meter, where Perplexity Pro spends it all inside one vendor's search product.
How the credits actually work inside Pro and Max
Computer is Perplexity's agent layer: multi-step tasks that browse, use files and chain models. It is metered in credits, and the plan differences are credit differences more than anything else. Pro includes expanded access plus a 4,000 credit bonus that lands once, when you subscribe; the plan listing does not show a recurring monthly refill. Max includes a 35,000 credit bonus and 10,000 credits that refill monthly. That single row in the feature grid explains most of the price gap: occasional agent use fits Pro, and anyone running Computer workflows daily needs the recurring Max allowance. The same feature grid lists 400-plus connectors, Model Council on Pro and several runs per month on Max, and higher multipliers on uploads, asset generation and video as you move up the tiers. When you compare Pro at $20 against a general chat subscription, this credit split is the honest scope of what the plan is for: it is a research and search product with agent capabilities metered on top, not an unmetered agent platform.
What Pro Search costs behind the scenes
Every Perplexity answer is assembled from Sonar models under the hood, and the API price list exposes the raw cost of that assembly. A Pro Search query, the multi-step kind Pro users get more of, carries a surcharge of $14 to $22 per 1,000 requests at API rates on top of token costs. Subscribers never see this meter, which is the point of a subscription, but it explains why usage caps and Computer credits exist: the underlying search calls are the expensive part, not the text generation.
Which to pick
Free if you want cited answers a few times a week. Pro at $20 (or $17 annual) if you want Deep Research, the good models and occasional Computer runs. Max only if you are a daily heavy agent user who will actually burn 10,000 recurring credits. Skip the whole stack if what you want is one meter across many model families rather than deeper access inside Perplexity's own product.
FAQ
Is Perplexity cheaper than ChatGPT?
Pro at $20 a month matches ChatGPT Plus exactly, and the annual option ($17 a month billed yearly) undercuts Plus on price. The products buy different things: cited search versus a general assistant.
Is Perplexity Pro worth it?
For heavy search, Deep Research and picking models per query, yes at $20. If you mostly want Perplexity Computer agents, note that Pro includes only a one-time 4,000 credit bonus; recurring monthly credits start at Max.
Why is Perplexity being sued?
Perplexity faces copyright lawsuits from publishers who allege its answer engine reproduces their journalism without permission. Dow Jones and the New York Post sued in October 2024, as reported by Reuters, and a federal court declined to dismiss or move that case in August 2025.
Which AI is better than Perplexity?
For cited research, few products beat it directly; Claude and ChatGPT both added search and citation features and are stronger for long-form reasoning. Our tested head-to-head is at Claude vs ChatGPT.
How is Pro different from Free?
Free gives limited usage on basic models. Pro adds the top AI models, a model picker, Deep Research, premium data sources like PitchBook and Statista, file and app search, and a one-time 4,000 Computer credit bonus.
Why choose Max over Pro?
Max is the only tier with recurring monthly Computer credits (10,000 plus a 35,000 bonus), frontier model access and the highest research and upload limits. If Pro's one-time bonus runs out and you still need agent runs daily, Max is where that feature lives.
Does a Perplexity subscription include the API?
No. The Sonar API has its own per-token pricing on docs.perplexity.ai and is billed separately from any consumer plan.
Does Perplexity cite its sources?
Yes, citations are the product's core mechanic: answers include numbered source links, and Pro and Max widen the source pool with premium data like PitchBook and Statista. If a claim matters, open the citation rather than trusting the summary, because the synthesis layer can misread a source the same way any model can.
Can you pay annually?
Pro offers annual billing at $17 a month per perplexity.ai/pro. The public hub page we rendered on 27 September 2026 displayed monthly prices only; the annual figure comes from the Pro page. Max annual pricing is not published on either page we read.
Related reads
- Gemini Pricing 2026
- ChatGPT Business Pricing 2026
- Midjourney Pricing 2026
- Claude Pricing 2026
- ChatGPT Plus vs Pro
- ChatGPT alternatives
Bottom line
Perplexity's pricing is simple on paper: $0, $20, $200. The fine print is that the $20 tier's agent credits are a one-time bonus and the best third-party models live at $200. If you want cited search with a strong model picker, Pro at $17 annual is the value buy. If you want agent compute at volume, expect to pay Max prices or run Sonar per answer elsewhere.