Perplexity

Perplexity is an AI answer engine. It searches the web in real time, writes a summary and cites its sources as numbered links. For a B2B company, it matters twice. It serves as a research tool for your teams. It is also a channel where your prospects compare providers and keep the ones the answer names.

What is Perplexity?

Perplexity AI is an American company founded in August 2022 in San Francisco by Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho and Andy Konwinski, four former Google AI members (Perplexity AI on Wikipedia). Its product works as a conversational search engine. The user asks a question. Perplexity runs several searches, reads the pages it finds and answers while citing each source.

The difference with ChatGPT lies in where the sources sit. Perplexity shows them at the heart of the answer and invites you to open them. ChatGPT answers first with its model, then adds links when it searches the web.

Perplexity also lets you choose the AI model. As of 23 October 2026, the Perplexity plans page lists GPT-6.1 Sol, Gemini 3.8 Flash, Claude Sonnet 5.5, Kimi K3, GLM 5.3 and Grok 4.7.

How does a Perplexity search work?

A query goes through four steps, visible on screen while the answer builds up.

1. The question is rewritten into several web searches.
2. The pages found are read and the useful passages selected.
3. A summary is written, with a source number on each claim.
4. Follow-up questions are suggested to dig deeper.

Deep research runs many more queries to produce a detailed report. Perplexity Computer, launched on 25 February 2026, hands the task to an agent that builds documents, tools and apps (Perplexity Computer announcement).

Perplexity pricing

The prices below were taken from the official pricing page on 23 October 2026. They are shown in US dollars, excluding tax and limited-time bonus credits.

Perplexity as an acquisition channel for B2B brands

A prospect who asks "which Webflow agency should I choose in Paris?" gets an answer that names three or four companies. Getting cited means making a short list before the site is even visited. Our study of AEO results at Noqode shows, with screenshots, Perplexity answers that cite our agency.

What it takes to get cited by Perplexity

• Let its bots in. Perplexity documents PerplexityBot for its index and Perplexity-User for visits triggered by a question (Perplexity bots documentation). A block in robots.txt or at the CDN level is enough to disappear from answers.
• Serve text in HTML. A page whose content depends on JavaScript stays unreadable for some AI bots, as our guide to SEO for LLMs explains. A Screaming Frog crawl with JavaScript disabled shows it.
• Answer at the top of each section. A short, factual passage is easier to reuse in a summary.
• Exist beyond your own site. Ahrefs' study on brand visibility in AI links citations to brand mentions on the web and on YouTube (Ahrefs study). We cover these signals in our article AEO vs SEO.

Measuring your visibility in Perplexity

Perplexity provides no dashboard of the citations a brand receives. GEO tools send a panel of questions at regular intervals and record the brands named. Our comparison of the best GEO tools shows which ones cover Perplexity on their entry plan. For a first check of your site, our free AEO audit tests how readable it is for AI.

In this video (in French), Amaury de Luca walks through the six pillars that make a site citable by ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, with demonstrations on the Noqode website.

Our review of Perplexity

Perplexity remains the most direct tool to check a piece of information against its sources. For a marketing team, it supports monitoring and competitive analysis. It also works as a quick test: the question a prospect would ask shows which brands AI keeps in your sector.

Strengths

• Visible, clickable sources on every claim.
• A choice between six AI model families on paid plans.
• Deep research that helps with industry monitoring.
• A free version that covers occasional use.

Limits

• A summary is only as good as its sources. A promotional or outdated page can end up cited.
• Plans rely on credits and usage limits that change often.
• Billing is in US dollars.
• No official data lets a brand track its citations.

For a B2B brand that wants to appear in these answers, the work covers the website and external mentions. Our SEO and GEO agency runs both.

Perplexity compared with ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini

• ChatGPT remains the most used assistant, with built-in web search and uses well beyond search.
• Claude stands out for long-form writing, document analysis and code.
• Gemini relies on Google's index and ecosystem, from AI Overviews to Gmail.
• ChatSEO turns Search Console data into actions to be visible on Google and in these engines.

FAQ: frequently asked questions about Perplexity

Is Perplexity free?

Yes. The free version lets you ask questions and get sourced answers. The Pro plan, at $17 a month billed yearly, adds model choice, deep research and higher limits.

What is the difference between Perplexity and ChatGPT?

Perplexity is designed first as a search engine and puts sources at the centre of each answer. ChatGPT is a general assistant that writes, codes and analyses, and searches the web when the question requires it.

Is Perplexity reliable?

Its answers can be checked, since every claim links to a source. Their reliability depends on those sources. For an important decision, open the cited links before reusing a figure.

How do you appear in Perplexity answers?

Allow PerplexityBot and Perplexity-User, serve your content in HTML, answer clearly at the top of the page and grow mentions of your brand beyond your site. Our guide AEO vs SEO covers these levers.

Should you block PerplexityBot in robots.txt?

No, if you want to be cited. Perplexity states that PerplexityBot is used to surface and link websites in its results and does not collect content to train AI models.