Perplexity Pro vs Perplexity Max: Complete Comparison and Report on Price, Computer Credits, Max-Only Models, and Teammates
Perplexity Pro and Perplexity Max are the two paid consumer subscriptions of Perplexity, the answer engine that has grown into a platform for search, research, the Comet browser assistant and Computer, its agent that builds reports, dashboards and apps. Pro is the entry paid plan and has existed since Perplexity's early years; Max was added above it as the high-usage tier and is now the only individual plan that includes Teammates, the always-on agents Perplexity added to its changelog on November 6, 2026. Both plans share the same answer engine, the same 40 MB file size limit and the same Veo 3.1 video model, so the differences sit in money, credits, models and limits.
The verdict comes down to one figure. Pro costs $20 a month and Max costs $200 a month, a gap of $180, and Max returns 10,000 Computer credits every month, which Perplexity values at $100 at its published rate of 100 credits per dollar. Pro includes no monthly credits at all, only a weekly included Computer allowance that runs on the Light effort setting. Our arithmetic shows that a Pro subscriber who buys the same credits at the standard rate always pays $80 a month less than a Max subscriber with the same Computer workload, so credits alone never justify Max. The $80 buys four Max-only search models (GPT-6 Astra, Gemini 4 Argon, Claude Opus 5.5 and Claude Fable 5.1 in Perplexity's October 17 model table), Model Council on web and iOS, Teammates, the highest browser-agent limits in Comet and higher weekly and monthly caps across Pro Search, Research, file uploads and file and app creation.
For most people who use Perplexity for search, citations and occasional Deep Research, Pro is the better buy. Max fits users who need frontier models such as Claude Opus 5.5 inside Search every day, who want Teammates to run ongoing jobs, or who already spend more than $100 a month on Computer credits and value the extra limits enough to pay the $80 premium, which falls to about $47 a month with Max's $2,000 annual billing. Prices and plan terms in this comparison were verified on Perplexity's pricing page, Help Center and blog on November 13, 2026.
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PERPLEXITY PRO AND PERPLEXITY MAX: WHAT EACH PLAN IS IN NOVEMBER 2026.
Perplexity sells four individual tiers on its pricing page: Free, Pro, Max and Education Pro, plus Enterprise Pro and Enterprise Max for organizations. The pricing page describes Pro as the plan for "serious work" with expanded Computer access, Deep Research, access to top AI models with model selection and higher usage limits and memory. It describes Max as the plan with "no limits on scale", maximum Computer usage, expert-level research, frontier AI models, the highest usage limits and memory, and priority access to new features.
Perplexity's Max article in the Help Center states that Max includes everything in Pro and adds faster access to the newest models from OpenAI, Anthropic and other labs, more powerful models for Research and for creating files and apps, Max Assistant in the Comet browser, early access to new products and priority support. Max is sold only to consumers who are on a Free or Pro plan; organizations are directed to Enterprise Max.
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Item | Perplexity Pro | Perplexity Max |
Position | Entry paid consumer plan | Top consumer plan, includes everything in Pro |
Monthly price | $20 | $200 |
Annual billing | $17 a month billed annually (pricing page) | $2,000 a year, web only |
Monthly Computer credits | None (weekly included usage instead) | 10,000 |
One-time bonus credits | 4,000 | 35,000 |
Max-only search models | No | GPT-6 Astra, Gemini 4 Argon, Claude Opus 5.5, Claude Fable 5.1 |
Teammates | No | Yes, research preview |
Model Council on web and iOS | No | Yes, monthly cap |
Support | Priority | Dedicated or priority, per Help Center |
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The Help Center lists Max support as "Dedicated" in its comparison table and as priority support with dedicated infrastructure in the plan description, while Pro gets support through Discord and the contact form. Both plans let users opt out of AI training on their data.
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PERPLEXITY PRO VS MAX PRICING: MONTHLY, ANNUAL AND ENTERPRISE EQUIVALENTS.
Perplexity's own blog post on AI costs, published October 13, 2026 with prices "as of October 2026", lists Pro at $20 a month and Max at $200 a month. The pricing page shows only annual-billing figures: $17 a month for Pro and $167 a month for Max. The Max Help Center article states the annual price exactly as $2,000 a year and adds that annual billing for Max is available only in the web app. The pricing page does not print the yearly total for Pro, so the only Pro annual figure available is the displayed $17 monthly equivalent.
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Plan | Monthly billing | Annual billing | Seat basis |
Perplexity Pro | $20 | $17 a month equivalent | Individual |
Perplexity Max | $200 | $2,000 a year ($166.67 a month) | Individual |
Education Pro | $10 with SheerID verification | Not stated | Individual, verified students |
Enterprise Pro | $40 per seat | $400 per seat | Organization |
Enterprise Max | $325 per seat | $3,250 per seat | Organization |
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Annual billing saves a Max subscriber $400 a year compared with twelve monthly payments of $200. The organizational tiers are priced differently: Enterprise Max costs $125 more per seat each month than consumer Max and includes 15,000 monthly credits, 40,000 bonus credits and up to 1,000 file uploads a week, against 500 credits and 100 uploads a week on Enterprise Pro. Consumer Max cannot be bought by Enterprise accounts, and Enterprise users who want Max-level limits have to move to Enterprise Max through their administrator.
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COMPUTER CREDITS ON PERPLEXITY PRO AND MAX: ALLOWANCE, BONUS AND TOP-UPS.
Credits are the currency of Perplexity Computer and of Comet Assistant in Work mode, which runs Computer. Ask searches and Comet Assistant in Search mode do not use credits, so a subscriber who only searches never touches the credit balance. The Help Center sets the rate at 100 credits per dollar and warns that pricing and allowances may change.
Pro's design differs from Max at the root. Consumer Pro plans include no monthly credits; they include a weekly allowance of Computer usage that resets each week from the first time it is used, cannot roll over and works only on the Light effort setting unless the account also holds credits. Max includes 10,000 credits a month that refresh on the billing date and also do not roll over.
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Credit rule | Perplexity Pro | Perplexity Max |
Monthly plan credits | None | 10,000 (worth $100 at 100 credits per $1) |
Weekly included Computer usage | Yes, Light effort only, amount not published | Not listed |
New-subscriber bonus | 4,000 credits, expires in about 30 days | 35,000 credits, expires in about 30 days |
Auto-refill trigger | Balance drops to 500 | Balance drops to 2,500 |
Default monthly spending cap | Exists, amount not published | $200, adjustable up to $5,000 |
Consumption order | Weekly usage, bonus, monthly, purchased | Weekly usage, bonus, monthly, purchased |
Purchased credit expiry | After one year without Computer use | After one year without Computer use |
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The bonus is granted once per account and does not repeat after resubscribing, switching billing cycle or receiving a later discount. Running out of credits pauses active Computer tasks instead of cancelling them, and the tasks resume once credits are available again. Auto-refill is off by default on both plans.
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WHAT PRO AND MAX CREDITS BUY: PERPLEXITY'S OWN TASK-COST RANGES.
Perplexity publishes example credit costs per task type in its credits article, and these ranges are the only official basis for estimating what a Max allowance covers. The Effort mode article adds that Computer runs at four effort levels (Light, Standard, High and Ultra), that lower settings use less expensive models and that the Standard level currently uses Claude Opus 5.5. Faster speeds such as Ultrafast also use more credits.
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Task type (Perplexity examples) | Credits | Dollar value at 100 credits per $1 | Max monthly allowance covers |
Quick fact or definition | 15 to 70 | $0.15 to $0.70 | 142 to 666 tasks |
Multi-step research report | 350 to 950 | $3.50 to $9.50 | 10 to 28 tasks |
Data dashboard | 2,400 to 9,800 | $24 to $98 | 1 to 4 tasks |
Entire app or multi-day build | 15,000 or more | $150 or more | Less than one task |
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The allowance figures in the last column divide 10,000 credits by the upper and lower ends of each range and round down. A single app build already exceeds a full month of Max credits, and the default $200 spending cap on Max limits purchased top-ups until the subscriber raises it.
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COST OF THREE COMPUTER WORKLOADS ON PERPLEXITY PRO VERSUS MAX.
To compare the two plans on equal terms we computed in Python the monthly cost of three Computer workloads built from Perplexity's own task ranges. The assumptions are conservative toward Max: Pro's weekly included usage is set to zero because Perplexity does not publish its size, one-time bonus credits are excluded because they expire after about 30 days, and every credit beyond the plan allowance is bought at the standard rate of 100 credits per dollar. Pro cost equals $20 plus purchased credits; Max cost equals $200 plus any credits beyond the 10,000 included.
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Monthly workload | Credits used | Pro cost | Max cost | Max minus Pro |
Light researcher: 40 quick facts and 8 multi-step reports | 3,400 to 10,400 | $54 to $124 | $200 to $204 | $146 to $80 |
Research analyst: 30 multi-step reports | 10,500 to 28,500 | $125 to $305 | $205 to $385 | $80 |
Builder: 4 data dashboards and 1 app build | 24,600 to 54,200 or more | $266 to $562 | $346 to $642 | $80 |
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The result is fixed by the structure of the plans. Once a workload passes 10,000 credits, Max costs $100 plus the credits used and Pro costs $20 plus the credits used, so Pro stays exactly $80 cheaper at every volume. Below 10,000 credits the gap is wider, up to $180 for a subscriber who uses no Computer credits at all. With annual billing, Max's monthly equivalent of $166.67 includes the same $100 of credits, which lowers the premium over monthly Pro to about $46.67 a month.
Two limits keep this arithmetic from being the whole story. Pro has a monthly purchase cap whose amount Perplexity does not publish, so a heavy builder could hit it before finishing a month's work, and the Builder workload above would exceed Max's default $200 spending cap unless the subscriber raises it toward the $5,000 ceiling. The comparison also prices credits only: the $80 difference is what Max charges for its models, limits and Max-only features.
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SEARCH MODELS ON PERPLEXITY PRO AND MAX: THE FOUR MAX-ONLY MODELS.
The Help Center article on advanced models carries a table dated October 17, 2026 that lists eleven models available in Search. Seven are shared by both plans and four are reserved for Max. The article states that Thinking is a setting on a model and appears in the selector when a model supports it, and that Computer has its own model selector and availability rules separate from Search.
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Model | Provider | Pro | Max |
GPT-6.1 Sol | OpenAI | Yes | Yes |
GPT-6 Astra | OpenAI | No | Yes |
Gemini 3.8 Flash | Yes | Yes | |
Gemini 4 Argon | No | Yes | |
Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Anthropic | Yes | Yes |
Claude Opus 5.5 | Anthropic | No | Yes |
Claude Fable 5.1 | Anthropic | No | Yes |
Kimi K3 | Moonshot AI | Yes | Yes |
GLM 5.3 | Z.ai | Yes | Yes |
Grok 4.7 | xAI | Yes | Yes |
Nemotron 3.5 Super VL | NVIDIA | Yes | Yes |
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The table predates Anthropic's release of Claude Fable 5.2 on November 9, and the article itself warns that models are subject to change and that the model selector in the account is the authoritative list. The Max article adds that new frontier models are added to Max on release and that this access applies inside Perplexity's apps only, since the Perplexity API is billed separately. For Pro subscribers, the strongest models in Search are GPT-6.1 Sol, Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Grok 4.7, which already cover most research and writing tasks.
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USAGE LIMITS ON PERPLEXITY PRO AND MAX: SEARCH, RESEARCH, FILES AND COMET.
Perplexity does not publish numeric caps for most paid limits. Its plan-selection article in the Help Center describes each Pro limit as sized for "average use" and each Max limit as sized for "advanced use", and the reset periods differ by feature: Pro Search and file uploads reset weekly, while Research, browser-agent queries and file and app creation reset monthly.
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Limit | Free | Perplexity Pro | Perplexity Max |
Pro Searches | 3 a day | Weekly limit, average use | Weekly limit, advanced use |
Research queries | 1 a month | Monthly limit, average use | Monthly limit, advanced use |
Comet browser-agent queries | No | Monthly limit, average use | Highest weekly limit of any tier |
File and app creation | No | Monthly limit, average use | Extended access, advanced use |
File uploads | Limited | Weekly allowance | Higher weekly allowance than Pro |
File size | 40 MB | 40 MB | 40 MB |
Files per Project | Not stated | Up to 50 | Not stated |
Ask searches in Best mode | Practically unlimited basic searches | No quota | No quota |
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The File Uploads article confirms the 40 MB limit for every file type on all plans and explains that each upload stops counting toward the weekly allowance about one week after it was attached; images and files from connected apps such as Google Drive count toward the same allowance, and the remaining allowance is not shown in account settings. Our guide to Perplexity file upload limits covers formats and Enterprise caps in more detail. The Pro article also notes that access to advanced models may be limited during weeks of especially heavy usage, a caveat that does not appear in the Max article.
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MAX-ONLY FEATURES: TEAMMATES, MODEL COUNCIL, MAX ASSISTANT AND EARLY ACCESS.
Teammates are the most visible Max-only feature. Perplexity's November 6 changelog describes them as agents that own ongoing jobs, plan the work, run tasks in parallel, report when results are ready and can message coworkers in Slack. The Help Center states that the initial research preview requires an individual Max subscription, that Free and Pro users must upgrade before creating a teammate, and that new teammates default to Claude Opus 5.5. The Teammates product page adds that every Max plan includes free Teammates usage for a promotional period, with no amount or end date given, after which teammates draw on Max's monthly credits. Our report on the Teammates launch covers the agents' design and examples.
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Feature | Perplexity Pro | Perplexity Max | Source detail |
Teammates | No | Yes, research preview | Web, with iOS listed on the product page |
Model Council in Search (web and iOS) | No | Yes, monthly query cap | Three frontier models plus a synthesizer |
Model Council inside Computer | Yes, uses credits | Yes, uses credits | Two to eight models per council |
Max Assistant in Comet | No | Yes | Reasoning models route each request |
Early access to new products | No | Yes | Help Center plan article |
Brain memory | Listed for Projects | Listed for Max Computer users | Changelog and Max article differ |
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Model Council runs one frontier model each from Anthropic, OpenAI and Google by default, answers the question in parallel and shows where the models agree and disagree. On web and iOS it is limited to Max and Enterprise Max with a monthly cap Perplexity does not quantify; inside Computer it is available on all paid plans and is charged in credits, with each additional model raising the cost. Brain is described in two ways: the Max article lists it as a free research-preview memory system for Max Computer users rolling out gradually, while the November 6 changelog describes Brain as project memory that is free in every Project.
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FEATURES PRO AND MAX SHARE: LOCAL COMPUTER ON MAC, VOICE MODE AND VEO 3.1 VIDEO.
Several recent features arrive on both plans. The fully local Computer on Mac, which runs tasks on the device without cloud processing of personal data, is available on Pro, Max and Enterprise for Apple silicon Macs with the Perplexity Mac app 26.42.0 or later, and Perplexity recommends 36 GB of unified memory. Voice mode, powered by OpenAI's gpt-live-1, works on Pro and Max on desktop web and in the Mac app.
Video generation uses Veo 3.1 for both Pro and Max, with clips of up to 8 seconds that may include audio, on web, iOS and Android. The Help Center says Max subscribers receive the highest number of video generation credits each month, that video credits cannot be bought and that they replenish on a rolling 30-day basis; the pricing page marks Max video generation as "5x" without stating a base number. Both plans also include premium data sources, which the pricing page names as PitchBook, Statista and S&P Capital IQ, plus image generation and access to Perplexity's app connectors.
For readers deciding which Perplexity mode to use within either plan, our comparison of Search, Pro Search, Research and Computer explains what each one does and which consume credits.
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BUYING, UPGRADING AND REFUNDS FOR PERPLEXITY MAX.
The Max Help Center article describes upgrade paths that differ by platform. On the web, a Pro subscriber upgrades from Settings, Account, Subscription, Upgrade Plan. Upgrading through a mobile app when the Pro plan was bought on the web creates a separate Max subscription alongside the existing Pro one, so Perplexity asks web subscribers to upgrade on the web. On iOS, refunds of remaining Pro time go through Apple Support; on Android, Google Play charges the full Max price immediately and extends the new subscription by the unused Pro time.
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Purchase rule | Detail from Perplexity's Max article |
Annual Max billing | Web app only, $2,000 a year |
Eligibility | Consumers on Free or Pro; Enterprise users go to Enterprise Max |
Refund window, EU, UK, Turkey | 14 days from purchase, monthly or annual |
Refund window, South Korea, Brazil | 7 days from purchase |
Refund window, all other customers | 24 hours for monthly plans, 48 hours for annual plans |
Cancellation or downgrade | Takes effect at the end of the billing cycle, Max access continues until then |
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The short refund window outside Europe, South Korea and Brazil is the practical reason to test Max with a monthly payment before committing to the $2,000 annual plan: a US subscriber who buys annual billing and changes their mind after two days has no refund route under the published policy.
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WHAT PERPLEXITY DOES NOT PUBLISH ABOUT PRO AND MAX LIMITS.
Most of the difference between Pro and Max is stated as relative terms. Perplexity gives no numeric weekly limit for Pro Searches, no monthly count of Research queries, Comet browser-agent queries or file and app creations, no weekly file upload counts for consumer plans, no Model Council cap and no number of video credits for either plan. The size of Pro's weekly included Computer usage is also unpublished, as is Pro's monthly credit purchase cap.
The official pages also disagree in places. The pricing page comparison table lists several features in a layout where plan columns cannot be matched reliably to values, the Pro Help Center article still names older models such as GPT-5.2 and Claude Sonnet 4.6 while the model table dated October 17 lists GPT-6.1 Sol and Claude Sonnet 5.5, and Brain is described as Max-only in one article and free in every Project in the November 6 changelog. Buyers should treat the model selector and the Usage page in their own account as the final reference, since Perplexity states that plans, models and allowances may change.
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PERPLEXITY PRO OR MAX: WHICH PLAN FITS WHICH USER.
The recommendation follows from the $180 price gap, the $100 credit value inside Max and the four Max-only models. Users whose work is mostly Ask searches, Pro Search and Research get the full answer engine on Pro and pay $180 a month less; users whose daily tasks need Claude Opus 5.5 or GPT-6 Astra inside Search, or who want Teammates, have no Pro route to those features.
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User or workload | Recommended plan | Reason |
Daily search with citations, occasional Deep Research | Pro | Same answer engine and shared models at $20 a month |
Students with SheerID verification | Education Pro | $10 a month with verification |
Light Computer use, a few reports a week | Pro | Weekly included usage plus purchased credits stays below $200 |
Heavy Computer use with no need for Max-only models | Pro with purchased credits | $80 a month cheaper than Max at every credit volume |
Research that depends on Claude Opus 5.5, GPT-6 Astra or Gemini 4 Argon in Search | Max | These models are Max-only in Search |
Ongoing agent jobs, monitoring and Slack follow-ups | Max | Teammates require an individual Max subscription |
Multi-model checking of answers on web or iOS | Max | Model Council in Search is Max-only |
Teams that need admin controls, SCIM and audit logs | Enterprise Pro or Enterprise Max | Consumer Max excludes organizations |
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Our guide to Perplexity pricing in 2026 lists all plans, including Free and Education Pro, for readers comparing beyond these two tiers.
Pro is the right default: it costs a tenth of Max, carries GPT-6.1 Sol, Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Grok 4.7, includes Computer through a weekly allowance and lets subscribers buy credits at the same $1 per 100 rate that Max uses. Max earns its price only for subscribers who will use the Max-only models, Model Council or Teammates often enough to value them above $80 a month, or about $47 a month on annual billing, and who can accept the 48-hour refund window before choosing the $2,000 yearly plan.
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