SoftBank Vision Fund 2 invests between $10 million and $20 million in Perplexity AI as part of a $250 million funding round, setting a $3 billion valuation for the search startup. This investment follows a period of rapid growth where the company reached a $21.21 billion valuation in early 2026 after a $500 million Series D. Perplexity reported 780 million monthly search queries and 45 million monthly active users. The company set a 2026 revenue target of $656 million after reaching approximately $148 million to $200 million in annualized revenue in late 2025. These numbers follow a January 2024 funding round that valued the company at $520 million with investments from Nvidia and Jeff Bezos. Perplexity saw a 640% increase in users in India during the second quarter of 2025 following a partnership with Airtel. The company maintains a high revenue-per-employee ratio, generating roughly $2 million for every one of its 90 to 100 employees. Perplexity reports an 85% retention rate among its users. The company also signed a $750 million commitment to Microsoft Azure in January 2026 to access frontier models. In 2024, the company received $34 million in total revenue. Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Andy Konwinski founded Perplexity in 2022.
Developers using the Sonar API must account for three variables: the selected model tier, the total token volume, and the specific request type. While token prices follow standard LLM patterns, the per-request fee layer changes the total cost based on the amount of web content the model retrieves. Perplexity’s Sonar Pro model charges between $3 for input and $15 for output per million tokens, plus an additional fee ranging from $6 to $14 per 1,000 requests depending on the context level. If you evaluate these costs for a production bot, you must model the request fees alongside token usage. For those using Deep Research, costs include $2 per million citation tokens, $3 per million reasoning tokens, and $5 per 1,000 autonomous search queries. The Agentic Research API allows access to models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and xAI at provider rates with a $0.005 fee per web search invocation and $0.0005 per URL fetch. Pro subscribers receive $5 per month in API credits to help offset these costs, though the API pricing structure remains a source of significant friction for scaling businesses, as developers on forums call these additional fees ridiculous.
| API Type | Model/Service | Base Token Price (per 1M) | Additional Request Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sonar | Base Model | $1 (Input/Output) | $5 to $12 per 1,000 requests |
| Sonar Pro | Pro Model | $3 (Input) / $15 (Output) | $6 to $14 per 1,000 requests |
| Sonar Reasoning Pro | Reasoning Model | $2 (Input) / $8 (Output) | Varies based on context |
| Deep Research | Deep Research | $2 (Input) / $8 (Output) | $5 per 1,000 searches |
| Search API | Raw Web Search | N/A | $1 (Fast) or $5 (Standard) per 1,000 |
Enterprises integrate Perplexity to automate research and data processing. The United States Anti-Doping Agency reduced research time by over 50% after adding the tool to its workflow to gather insights on sports science and adult learning principles. The agency’s legal team also uses the tool to generate and refine practice tests for certification programs. Lambda also cut research time in half to allow engineers to focus on product development rather than data retrieval, which improved customer proposal turnaround. Perplexity’s Enterprise Pro plan costs $40 per seat per month. This tier provides 500 Deep Research queries per day and 15,000 file uploads across all Spaces. Teams access up to 9,999 collaborators in a private Space. Administrators use SSO, SCIM provisioning, role-based access, and audit logging to manage security. The plan includes SOC 2 Type II compliance and an option to opt out of model training. Enterprise Max costs $325 per seat per month and provides unlimited Deep Research, unlimited Labs queries, and organization-wide analytics. For power users, the $200 monthly Max plan includes 10,000 Perplexity Computer credits and unlimited Labs. Students can use Education Pro for $10 per month with verification through SheerID. Will organizations eventually shift away from per-seat subscriptions toward pure API-driven volume? The company is targeting a $656 million revenue goal for 2026.
