D
DPerplexity AI vs Semantic Scholar
Pricing, features, platforms and who each one suits — side by side.
P
Choose Perplexity AI if…
- you're in its core audience: researchers, knowledge workers
S
Choose Semantic Scholar if…
- you want a free plan to start with
- you're in its core audience: researchers, students
Side by side
Feature Perplexity AI Semantic Scholar
Pricing modelPaidFree
Starting price—Free
Free plan
Free trial
API
Open source
Inline citations—
Citation export—
PlatformsWeb, APIWeb, API
CategoryAI SearchResearch Assistants
CompanyPerplexityThe Allen Institute for AI
Based in——
Founded20222015
Part of—Ai2
Key features
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
S Semantic Scholar
- Search across 239+ million scientific papers
- Coverage of all fields of science
- Semantic Reader augmented reading for select papers (beta)
- Developer API with paper search
- API documentation, tutorials and gallery
- Free user accounts
- Resources for librarians and publishers
Plans and prices
From each vendor's site. Prices change — confirm before buying.
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
Semantic Scholar
FreeFree
Strengths and limitations
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
Semantic Scholar
- Free to use
- Indexes over 239 million papers from all fields
- Public API with documentation and tutorials
- Built by the nonprofit research institute Ai2
- Semantic Reader is in beta and only works on select papers
- No mobile apps listed
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Built from each vendor's public website; we haven't tested them hands-on. Editorial policy