Perplexity AI and ChatGPT look similar at first glance—both are chat-style AI tools—but they’re optimised for different jobs:
Perplexity AI → a real-time “answer engine” that searches the web by default and always shows sources.
ChatGPT → a general-purpose AI assistant focused on reasoning, writing, coding, and multi-step tasks, with optional web browsing and tools.
Below is how they compare on pricing, features, and best use cases.
Recent pricing guides and Perplexity’s own pages list:
Free (Standard) – $0
Pro – $20/month or $200/year
Max – $200/month (for heavy power users)
Enterprise Pro – from $40/user/month for teams, with custom discounts at higher seat counts
Pro and Max mainly expand Deep Research, file limits, and access to extra tools.
OpenAI offers multiple ChatGPT tiers: Free, Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise.
Free – $0, with basic access to GPT-5 and tools but tighter limits.
Plus – about $20/month, aimed at individual power users (more GPT-5 access, faster responses, more tools).
Pro – higher-end individual tier with even larger limits and earlier access to new models/tools (pricing varies by region).
Business (formerly Team) – per-user/month pricing for small–mid teams; adds a shared workspace, admin controls, and data is excluded from training.
Enterprise – custom pricing for large organisations, with advanced security, SSO/SCIM, audit logs and highest model access.
Designed as an “answer engine”: it runs web searches for almost every query and returns a short, cited response instead of a list of links.
Every answer shows sources and citations by default, making it strong for fact-checking, SEO research, and up-to-date information.
Deep Research mode breaks a hard question into sub-tasks, browses many pages, and synthesizes a report; Pro users get unlimited Deep Research while free users get a small daily allowance.
Built as a general conversational assistant that can work even with no internet, then optionally browse when you enable tools like Deep Research or web browsing.
Especially strong at long-form writing, coding, brainstorming, and complex reasoning thanks to GPT-5.1 and other frontier models.
Deep Research in ChatGPT can spend minutes browsing hundreds of sources, run code, and output detailed reports with citations, especially on Plus/Pro and Business/Enterprise.
Simple view:
Need fast, cited answers from the live web? → Perplexity leans ahead.
Need deep reasoning, structured content or coding help? → ChatGPT usually wins.
Perplexity: Web search is the default for almost everything, with citations in every response; this makes it highly reliable for news, current events and SEO research.
ChatGPT: Free answers are often based on the model’s training plus selective browsing; full Deep Research/web browsing is a separate tool you turn on. It can go very deep but is slightly less “searchy” by default.
ChatGPT
Very strong at essay-style writing, marketing copy, story ideas, code, and refactors thanks to GPT-5-class models and the Codex coding agent.
Plus/Pro and Business users get projects, tasks, custom GPTs, memory, Sora 1 video snippets, and advanced data-analysis tools.
Perplexity
Can also draft emails, blogs and code, but most reviewers describe it as more factual and concise, less “story-teller” than ChatGPT.
Pro/Max add Labs and Deep Research features that can generate outlines, reports and data summaries from the web and files.
Perplexity
Pro and Enterprise plans include image generation using models like DALL·E and Stable Diffusion.
Recently added virtual clothes try-on: upload a photo, see garments on a digital avatar—exclusive to Pro/Max users.
ChatGPT
Even on the free plan you can typically generate images; Plus and higher tiers increase limits and speed.
Paid plans offer voice conversations, file analysis, deep research mode, custom GPTs, and limited Sora 1 video generation.
Perplexity Enterprise
Focuses on real-time, cited insights for knowledge workers with enterprise-grade security, team seat management, and internal knowledge base integration.
ChatGPT Business & Enterprise
Provide shared workspaces, connectors to internal tools (docs, CRM, tickets), SSO/SCIM, audit logs, and strong data-privacy guarantees—data is excluded from training.
Widely adopted in large firms like Accenture and LSEG for financial and consulting workflows.
Drawing on multiple 2025 comparison reports:
Up-to-date facts and real-time information (news, market data, SEO research)
Short, reliable summaries of many sources in one shot
Built-in citations for every answer
A tool that behaves more like a search engine replacement than a “chat buddy”
Long-form writing (blogs, essays, social captions, scripts)
Coding help, debugging, and data-analysis workflows
Complex multi-step reasoning or project-style work with Deep Research and agents
Rich multimodal tools (voice, images, video snippets, custom GPTs, advanced projects)
Many power users actually use both:
Perplexity to gather fresh, cited information,
ChatGPT to turn that information into polished content, code, or strategies.
Perplexity AI = search-optimised answer engine with real-time web access and automatic citations. Great for fact-finding, research, and keeping up with what just happened on the internet.
ChatGPT = general AI assistant with deeper reasoning, stronger writing & coding, and a richer ecosystem of tools, especially on Plus/Pro and Business/Enterprise tiers.
If your main question is “Which one should I start with?”:
Start with Perplexity Free + ChatGPT Free and try them side by side on your everyday tasks.
If you upgrade later:
Choose Perplexity Pro if you’re mostly doing research, SEO, or news-driven work.
Choose ChatGPT Plus/Pro if you’re mostly doing writing, coding, analysis or creative projects.
