Perplexity pricing and alternatives: web search API, POST /search, Search the Web

Perplexity's site llms.txt Best web search API in 2026

33% complete: 2 of the 6 key fields we checkSee the 6 fields

$5.00per 1,000 searchesHalf of the 177 plans we rank by price cost $2.50 per 1,000 searches or less. This plan is cheaper than 24% of the 177 plans.The cheapest plan we rank by price is Ceramic, $99 monthly, at $0.20 per 1,000 searches.Search1API, Firecrawl and Valyu are the best web search API providers in our benchmark.

Plan: Prepaid credits one of Perplexity's 3 plans

Call: POST /search, Search the Web one of Perplexity's 2 calls

API: Web search API Perplexity's only API

Web search API

About this item

Freshness. We don't know how fresh this plan's data is.
2 of the 6 key fields we check. Date, Text.
A balance you top up. You pay any amount. You spend all of it on calls.
One call. You send query to POST /search. The call returns the matching web pages.
Who can get it: with conditions. Keep data: with conditions. Use data: with conditions.

Perplexity: web search API alternatives

We list other providers' plans closest to this plan in price per 1,000 searches.

	This planPerplexity, top-up, Prepaid credits, POST /search, Search the Web	Search1API, top-up from $5, Pay as you go, POST /ask	Firecrawl, top-up from $5, Pay-as-you-go on Standard, POST /v2/search	Nimble, pay as you go, Pay as you go, POST /v2/search, Search, standard	Sofya, top-up from $10, Pay as you go, POST /v1/search, Search, basic
$ per 1,000 searches	$5.00	$5.00	$5.00	$5.00	$5.00
Completeness	33%	33%	33%	17%	50%
Billing	pay first	pay first	pay first	pay as you go	pay first
Pay	any amount	$5	$5	monthly	$10
Enough for	as many as you pay for	as many as you pay for	1,000 calls	as many as you pay for	2,000 calls
Freshness	unknown	live	unknown	live	unknown
Who can get it	anyone using it on behalf of an organization, paying by credit card (its terms bind "the organization on whose behalf you are accessing or using the Services")	anyone	anyone at least 18 years old, or 13 years or older with the express permission of a parent or guardian	anyone who signs up	anyone: email sign-ups start at 0 credits on pay-as-you-go

Every web search API provider we score, ranked

Sources

From each provider's own pricing page and docs, and from what providers tell us. We read this row from these pages on 2026-10-27.

Product details

The key fields this plan's answer can hold, then each filled column in its row on the sheet.

Date
Author, not in the answer
Text
Summary, not in the answer
Links, not in the answer
Answer, not in the answer

Price
$ per 1,000 searches	$5.00
Per	call
Billing	pay first

Aggregators
Aggregators	none

Charges
Most per search	20
Also pays for	from the same budget: Create Chat Completion · Create Response · Create Message · Create Agent Response · Create Embeddings · Create Contextualized Embeddings · Fast Search

Not found
$ per 1,000	$5.00

In their words
Their pitch	Search the web and retrieve relevant web page contents.

Data
Keep data	no retention period is set for what the API answers, "Customer [...] owns all Output"
Use data	"Customer may, on a non-exclusive, non-sublicensable and non-transferable basis during the term of this Agreement, [...] (ii) use the Services and the API Keys solely to submit Input [...] to the Service, receive Output [...] from the Service, and display such Output, in each case, solely within the Customer Applications in accordance with the API Documentation", "Customer has no right or license to, and shall not (nor permit others, including end users of the Customer Applications, to), directly or indirectly use the Services, Outputs or API Platform in a manner that violates Perplexity’s Acceptable Use Policy", "if Perplexity determines that a Customer Application is [...] competitive with Perplexity [...] Perplexity may terminate the license under Section 2.1(ii) in respect of such Customer Application and deactivate the relevant API Key(s)"

Rate limit
Per second	50

Speed
Answer	in the call

The call
You send	query. Optional: country, max_results, search_type, max_tokens, max_tokens_per_page, search_language_filter, search_domain_filter, last_updated_after_filter, last_updated_before_filter, search_after_date_filter, search_before_date_filter, search_recency_filter
Method	POST
Path	/search

About the plan
Plan	Prepaid credits
Who can get it	anyone using it on behalf of an organization, paying by credit card (its terms bind "the organization on whose behalf you are accessing or using the Services")

The 7 fields the plan's answer can hold

request ID, page title, URL, snippet, published date, last updated date, server time

Perplexity pricing and alternatives: web search API, POST /search, Search the Web

About this item

Perplexity: web search API alternatives

Sources

Product details

Best GTM APIs