Perplexity

What Perplexity actually meters

Perplexity counts two things, and they behave nothing alike.

The first is search. Pro Searches meter per day on Free and per week on paid tiers, Research queries per month, Comet browser-agent runs per month, file uploads per week. The help centre prints a plan table with a row for each, so the shape is clear. The quantities are where it falls apart. Free reads 3 Pro Searches a day and 1 Research query a month. Enterprise Pro reads 400 Pro Searches a week, 50 Research queries, 80 Comet agent queries and 100 file uploads, and Enterprise Max multiplies each by ten. Pro, Education Pro and Max sit between them and read "Weekly limits (average use)" or "(advanced use)". The tiers with numbers are the free one and the contracted one.

Models are gated, not sublimited. Free users can't pick one. Pro picks from Sonar 2, GPT-5.6 Terra, Claude Sonnet 5 and Gemini 3.7 Flash, while GPT-5.6 Sol, Claude Opus 5, Model Council and Brain unlock on Max only.

The second meter is credits, and only Computer spends them. Ask searches and Comet Assistant in Search mode cost nothing.

How credits work

Credits are dollars in another unit, and Perplexity states the rate outright: 100 credits equals $1.

Grants differ by tier. Consumer Pro gets no monthly allocation, just a one-time 4,000-credit bonus expiring in 30 days. Max gets 10,000 a month plus a 35,000 bonus. Enterprise Pro gets 500 a month per seat, Enterprise Max 15,000. The pricing page advertises an 8,500-credit bonus on Enterprise Pro where the help centre says 8,000, the one figure they disagree on.

Deduction order runs bonus first, then monthly, then purchased. Monthly credits refresh on your signup date, including for annual subscribers, and don't roll over. Purchased credits keep until you spend them, then expire after a year without using Computer. They're non-refundable and non-transferable.

Auto-refill stays off until you switch it on, triggering at 500 credits on Pro and 2,500 on Max. Max accounts also carry a monthly spending cap, $200 by default and settable to $5,000.

What happens when you hit the limit

Running out of credits pauses work rather than billing for it. Active tasks stop where they are, the work is saved, new credit-spending tasks won't start, and everything resumes once credits arrive or the grant resets. Hitting the Max spending cap does the same, and offers to raise it.

The subscription keeps working throughout. Ask searches never draw on credits, so a zero balance costs you the agent and nothing else. A prompt to buy credits only means the request would have run through Computer, and you can dismiss it.

What happens when the search quota runs out is not documented. Perplexity publishes the counters but never says whether the product blocks, falls back to Best mode, or just waits.