> Perplexity
Perplexity's API blends request and token pricing: Search API at $5 per 1,000 requests; Sonar at $1/$1 tokens plus a $5–$12 per-1K request fee that scales with search depth; and the new Agent API serving OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and xAI models at direct provider rates with no markup, plus per-invocation tool pricing (web_search $0.0025). Sonar is sunset after September 27, 2026 — the Agent API is the successor.
// pros
- The specialist for search-grounded answers: request fees scale with search depth (low/medium/high), so you pay for retrieval effort rather than guessing at tokens.
- The Agent API routes OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI, Z.AI, Moonshot and NVIDIA models at direct provider rates with an explicit no-markup policy.
- Cheap building blocks: embeddings from $0.004 per 1M tokens, fetch_url $0.0005 per call, web_search $0.0025 per call — RAG plumbing costs almost nothing.
- Per-response cost reporting (usage.cost.total_cost) — you see the exact bill of every request.
- AWS Marketplace purchase option for consolidated enterprise billing.
// cons
- A transition is live: Sonar is supported only until September 27, 2026 — integrations must migrate to the Agent API (a published migration guide exists).
- Per-query pricing makes costs variable: Sonar Pro 'pro' search at high context is $22 per 1K requests plus tokens — a chatty research agent can outspend flat-token models.
- No free API tier — consumer-plan credits do not apply to the API (checked 2026-09-16).
- Deep Research bills four components at once (tokens + citation tokens + search queries + reasoning tokens) — the most complex cost model in this directory.
Still the specialist for search-grounded answers — but migrate Sonar integrations to the Agent API before September 27, and hold search depth at 'low' unless the answer demonstrably needs more.
written by Mike Fleming, Uprouter editorial · verified against official sources September 16, 2026
Free tier present — value not quantified
This provider offers a free tier, but its terms don’t convert cleanly into a USD figure (e.g. request-count limits or capacity-dependent pools). We refuse to print a misleading zero here. See the note below and the official pricing page for the exact limits.
note: No free tier on the API (checked 2026-09-16). Consumer Pro/Max plan credits (35K bonus + 10K monthly) apply to the app, not the API.
| Plan | Type | Monthly | Input /1M | Output /1M | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free tier (source-reported) | free | — | — | — | Web/App free tier: a limited number of search Q&As per day on a basic model; Pro at $20/month includes $5/month of API credit; the Sonar API is pay-per-token (new accounts may get trial credit). |
| Pay-as-you-go | payg | — | $1.00 | $1.00 | sonar ~$1/$1 + per-request search fee |
| Sonar API | payg | — | $1.00 | $1.00 | Base rate for Sonar models. Search fees of $5-12 per 1k requests may apply. |
| Free | free | — | — | — | Best (auto) model + limited Pro Searches; no manual advanced-model selection. |
| Pro | subscription | $20.00/mo | — | — | $20/month or $200/year. Unlocks advanced model selection (Sonar 2, GPT-5.6 Terra, Gemini 3.7 Flash, Claude Sonnet 5, Kimi K3, GLM 5.3, Grok 4.6, Nemotron 3 Ultra), Deep Research, Labs. |
| Max | subscription | $200.00/mo | — | — | $200/month (annual ~$167/mo). Adds GPT-5.6 Sol, Claude Opus 5, Model Council, max Computer usage; 35,000 bonus credits + 10,000 monthly credits. |
| Search API (pay as you go) | payg | — | — | — | $5.00 per 1,000 successful requests (a request may batch up to 5 queries = 1 billing unit; each query in a multi-query request consumes 1 query unit against the 50 qps limiter). No token costs. Rate limit: 50 query units/s sustained, 50 instant burst. |
| Sonar (chat model, context) | payg | — | $1.00 | $1.00 | Sonar chat model: $1/1M input + $1/1M output tokens + search request fee $5-$12 per 1K by context size (Sonar Pro $3/$15 + $6-$14/1K). Listed for completeness — these are models, not the Search API. |
Pricing normalized from public sources — always verify with the provider.
// model prices
| Model | Input /1M | Output /1M | Context |
|---|---|---|---|
| Perplexity default free search model (basic Sonar class) | — | — | — |
| Sonar | — | — | 127k |
| gpt-5.6-terra | — | — | 1.1M |
| gpt-5.6-sol | — | — | 1.1M |
| gemini-3.7-flash | — | — | 1.0M |
| claude-sonnet-5 | — | — | 1M |
| claude-opus-5 | — | — | 1M |
| kimi-k3 | — | — | 1.0M |
| glm-5.3 | — | — | 1.3M |
| grok-4.6 | — | — | 500k |
| Nemotron 3 Ultra | — | — | 256k |
$ Does Perplexity have a free tier?
Yes — Perplexity offers a free tier. Always confirm current limits on Perplexity's official pricing page — free tiers change without notice.
$ How much does Perplexity cost per 1M tokens?
Perplexity does not publish simple per-1M-token pricing (it may bill per request, per output, or via a subscription plan). Check their official pricing page for exact figures.
$ Is Perplexity safe to use?
Uprouter rates Perplexity as medium risk. Low risk: first-party docs state the per-component pricing, the no-markup Agent API policy and the Sonar sunset date with a migration guide (verified 2026-09-16). The exposure is the transition itself — building on a model family with three weeks of support left. Risk ratings are editorial, evidence-based, and never influenced by affiliate relationships.
Raw community sentiment, shown unblended. Votes never feed into objective data fields like price, risk, or status — and never into sort order.
No published reviews yet — be the first.
// more_informationprice history · live status · risk & confidence · code snippets
price_history
No recorded changes yet.
live_status
full history →best-effort probes · not a guarantee · last 17h ago
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Uprouter runs its own probes; best-effort, not a guarantee. Probe results depend on our network location and cadence — for production, always use the provider’s own status page.
risk_&_confidence
Low risk: first-party docs state the per-component pricing, the no-markup Agent API policy and the Sonar sunset date with a migration guide (verified 2026-09-16). The exposure is the transition itself — building on a model family with three weeks of support left.
Confidence reflects how much verifiable evidence (official docs, probe history, community reports) backs this entry. Risk is our editorial assessment of operator reliability and terms — not financial advice.
code_snippets
# Perplexity's own API — get a key from their dashboard
curl https://www.perplexity.ai/chat/completions \
-H "Authorization: Bearer THEIR_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "perplexity-default-free-search-model-basic-sonar-class",
"messages": [{ "role": "user", "content": "Hello" }]
}'Direct to the provider — Uprouter receives nothing; verify their current pricing before purchasing.
Ranked by neutral similarity signals only — live status, free-tier shape and free-credit proximity. Commercial relationships never influence this list.