What it is
Perplexity is an AI search engine. You ask a question and it searches the web, reads the results and gives you an answer with numbered citations you can click.
The distinction from a chat assistant matters. An assistant answers from what it knows and may invent specifics. Perplexity answers from sources it just read and shows you which ones.
I use it several times a day, mostly for things where being wrong would be expensive: current pricing, regulation, whether a tool still does what it used to.
What it does
The core loop is question, sourced answer, follow-up. The follow-up suggestions are unusually good and often surface the question I should have asked.
Focus modes narrow the search to academic sources, social discussion or specific domains, which changes the quality of the answer considerably.
Spaces let you collect research on one subject with your own uploaded files alongside web sources, which is useful for a project that runs for weeks.
It is deliberately not a writing tool. The prose is functional and short, and that is the correct design decision for what it does.
Who it's for
Features
Pros and cons
Pricing
| PLAN | WHAT YOU GET | WORTH IT FOR |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Standard searches with limits on the advanced model. | Occasional research, which is most people. |
| Individual paid | Many more advanced searches, file uploads, better models. | Daily research as part of your work. |
| Enterprise | Team management and data controls. | Organisations with compliance requirements. |
| API | Programmatic access to sourced answers. | Building research into your own tooling. |
The free tier covers a surprising amount. Use it for a fortnight before deciding whether you research often enough to pay.
Free, unless research is a daily part of your job. If it is, the individual paid tier pays for itself in the first week you avoid one wrong assumption.
Alternatives
My verdict
Perplexity does one thing and does it better than the general assistants: it answers with sources you can check. For any claim I might have to defend to a client, that is the difference between useful and unusable.
It is not a replacement for a chat assistant and it is not trying to be. I use it as the research step and something else as the writing step, and that division has been stable for over a year.
Start on the free tier. If you find yourself hitting the limits within a fortnight, that is your answer on whether to pay.
Try Perplexity →Who should use it
Who should avoid it
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Affiliate disclosure
I earn nothing from this recommendation. There is no affiliate link on this page and I pay for my own subscription where one is needed. When a review on this site does carry a commercial link, it says so in this same place on the page.