C
CChatGPT vs Perplexity AI
Pricing, features, platforms and who each one suits — side by side.
C
Choose ChatGPT if…
- you want a free plan to start with
- you're in its core audience: individuals and students, writers and knowledge workers
P
Choose Perplexity AI if…
- you need an API to build on
- you're in its core audience: researchers, knowledge workers
Side by side
Feature ChatGPT Perplexity AI
Pricing modelFreemiumPaid
Starting price$8/mo—
Free plan
Free trial
API
Open source
Trains AI on your contentYes—
Web search—
File upload & analysis—
Image generation—
Voice conversations—
Memory—
Custom assistants—
App connectors / MCP—
PlatformsWebWeb, API
CategoryAI ChatbotsAI Search
CompanyOpenAIPerplexity · since 2022
Full feature lists
C ChatGPT
- Chat-based answers to questions and tasks
- Help with writing and editing
- Coding help through the included Codex agent
- Several individual tiers from Free to Pro
- Per-seat team workspaces through Business
- Enterprise plan sold through sales
P Perplexity AI
- Answers questions using live web search
- Search API with Standard and Fast Search modes
- Agent API running OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and other models
- Built-in tools: web, image, people and finance search
- Code sandbox sessions for agents
- pplx-embed embedding models
- Orchestrator API with per-token billing
- Decisions API that charges for input tokens only
Their home pages
What each vendor shows first: the pitch, the plans and the sign-up.
ChatGPT · chat.openai.com
Perplexity AI · perplexity.aiWhat you'd pay
The cheapest plan that fits, per month, billed yearly where the plan offers it.
| Team size | ChatGPT | Perplexity AI |
|---|---|---|
| 1 person | $8 Go | no published plan |
| 5 people | $100 Business | no published plan |
| 20 people | $400 Business | no published plan |
All plans and prices
ChatGPT
Free$0
Go$8/mo (US)
Plus$20/mo
ProFrom $100/mo
Business$20/user/mo billed annually; $25 monthly
EnterpriseCustom
Perplexity AI
Search API$5.00 per 1K requests (Standard); $1.00 per 1K (Fast Search)
Agent API toolsFrom $0.50 per 1K calls
Embeddings API$0.004–$0.05 per 1M tokens
Decisions API$0.01–$0.02 per 1M input tokens
Strengths and limitations
ChatGPT
- Free plan available
- Go plan costs $8/month in the US
- Codex is included in all plans, Free included
- Business plan starts at just 2 users
- Free plan has limited features
- Pro tiers cost $100–$500 per month
- Enterprise pricing is only available from sales
Perplexity AI
- Published per-request and per-token API pricing
- Requests rejected with a 429 error are not billed on the Orchestrator API
- Access to models from several vendors through one Agent API
- Decisions API output tokens are free
- Search API bills successful requests even when they return no results
- Per-token model rates are on separate pages rather than in the main pricing overview
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Facts from each vendor's public pages, prices checked Oct 26, 2026. Editorial policy