Perplexity Pro Trust Audit: Cited search, with training on by default and a 24-hour refund clock

What it actually costs

Free is $0. Pro is $20 a month or $200 a year, about $16.67 a month. Max is $200 a month or $2,000 a year. Education Pro is $10 a month for verified students and educators, and includes everything in Pro. Perplexity’s own table lists Enterprise Pro at $40 per seat a month ($400 a year) and Enterprise Max at $325 ($3,250 a year).

What Pro adds is capacity and choice, not a different search engine. The help centre lists 10 times as many citations per answer, increased file and photo uploads, extended access to Research, enhanced image generation, limited video generation, Create files and apps, and premium models including GPT-5.2, Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Gemini 3.1 Pro. Breakdowns checked against Perplexity’s pages describe Pro Search as unlimited, 20 Deep Research runs a day and $5 a month in Sonar API credits — a sample, not a developer budget.

Two traps deserve plain language. First, Perplexity’s own Pro page hedges: it says “extended access” and a “high volume” of daily searches, not a hard number you can hold it to. Second, Computer, the agent feature, is metered in credits. Pro does not get a monthly Computer allowance on that breakdown — it gets a one-time 4,000-credit bonus that expires in 30 days — while Max gets 10,000 credits a month. Finally, the terms let Perplexity change plans or pricing “in any manner and at any time” in its “sole and absolute discretion”, after “reasonable notice”.

Your data: what the fine print actually says

This is the weakest part. Perplexity’s data-collection page says that for Free, Pro and Max users “AI Data Retention is enabled by default” and some data may be used to train AI models and improve search quality unless you opt out. Only Enterprise data is described as never used for training.

The opt-out is simple but limited. Go to Account Settings, open Preferences and turn off AI data retention. Do it before your first sensitive search, because Perplexity states: “Opt-outs only apply to data collected after the opt-out date” and “Previously collected training data cannot be deleted or removed”. Opting out does not stop all processing either: data may still be processed for service operation, legal compliance and product improvement.

Retention is vague where you would want a date. The privacy notice says personal data is kept “only as long as necessary”, unless a longer period is required or permitted by law, with no fixed deadline for ordinary queries. Files are more specific: the upload help page says files and images are retained for 30 days, or 7 days for Enterprise Pro, after which file contents are no longer accessible for follow-ups. Files in Projects are retained until deleted. If you share a session publicly, anyone with the link can see an uploaded file or image that remains visible there, so keep sensitive threads private.

Incognito helps, but it is not anonymity. The account-settings help says searches in incognito mode “are never stored”, and the privacy notice says it does not save search activity across sessions. The same notice warns, for Comet incognito, that Perplexity and third parties such as visited websites may still be able to track you.

Refunds & cancellation

The Terms of Service, section 2.4, state the default bluntly: subscription payments are “nonrefundable” and there are “no credits for partially used periods”. The help centre then carves out narrow exceptions.

In the EU, UK or Turkey you are eligible for a refund if you cancel within 14 days of purchase, monthly or annual. In South Korea or Brazil the window is 7 days. For all other customers, monthly subscriptions can be refunded only up to 24 hours after purchase, and annual subscriptions only within 72 hours, with the help centre adding: “No exceptions for requests after this period.” A second refund after a first has been granted will not be processed.

Subscriptions auto-renew at the then-current rate unless you cancel before the renewal date. On the web, cancel through Settings and Manage Subscription. If you subscribed through Apple or Google, the app store controls billing and the cancel option does not appear in Perplexity Settings — cancel in App Store Subscriptions on iOS, or Google Play Payments & Subscriptions on Android. Apple refunds go via reportaproblem.apple.com. After cancelling you keep paid access until the end of the period paid for, then revert to Free. One costly trap: deleting your account does not terminate your subscription. Cancel first, delete second.

Company risk

Perplexity is not a fragile hobby project. Reuters reported in September 2025 that it had secured commitments for $200 million in new funding at a $20 billion valuation, and described it as Nvidia-backed.

The legal risk sits at the centre of the business. Reuters reported on 5 December 2025 that The New York Times sued Perplexity for copying, distributing and displaying millions of its articles without permission, including paywalled material, and alleged trademark harm from fabricated content falsely attributed to the Times. The same report noted Reddit sued in October 2025 over alleged unlawful scraping, and that Dow Jones and the New York Post were also suing. Those are allegations in active disputes, not final judgments. The consumer risk is practical either way: if courts restrict how Perplexity collects publisher content, or force expensive licensing, the likely results are fewer or weaker sources, higher prices, or both. Do not prepay for a year assuming today’s sources, models and limits are locked in.

Who should / shouldn’t buy it

Buy it if: research with sources is part of your week, you regularly hit the free limits, and you will use model choice, larger uploads and deeper Research. Pay monthly at first, turn off AI data retention on day one, and keep confidential material out of consumer Pro — the never-train promise is an Enterprise promise, not a Pro one. Students should check Education Pro first: the same product for half the price.

Skip it if: you only need a few cited answers a week, because Free covers casual use without a card on the refund clock. Skip it if you need a guarantee that inputs will never be used for training, or time to change your mind about an annual plan. Skip Max unless you can name agent work that will burn 10,000 Computer credits a month — it buys credits and caps, not a more trustworthy service.

Bottom line

Perplexity Pro earns 6/10: a useful, fairly priced research upgrade undermined by training-on-by-default, a non-retroactive opt-out, vague query retention and an unusually harsh refund policy outside regions where the law forces a longer window. Buy it monthly, opt out immediately, and cancel in the store where you bought it — do not mistake a Pro subscription for a privacy subscription.

How we audit: we have not purchased or hands-on tested Perplexity Pro. This audit is written from Perplexity’s own pricing page, help centre and terms, plus reputable published reporting, checked in October 2026. Prices and terms change; the links below show exactly where each claim comes from.

Sources

• Plan prices for Pro, Max, Enterprise Pro and Enterprise Max in Perplexity’s own October 2026 pricing table: https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/blog/ai-costs
• What Pro includes — citations, uploads, Research, image/video generation, Create, and named premium models: https://www.perplexity.ai/help-center/en/articles/10352901-what-is-perplexity-pro
• Annual prices, Education Pro price, Deep Research and Labs limits, $5 Sonar API credit, and Computer credit traps (checked against Perplexity pages): https://dev.to/stimlau/perplexity-pro-pricing-explained-free-vs-pro-vs-max-in-2026-36ae
• Education Pro includes everything in Pro, including unlimited Pro Searches: https://www.perplexity.ai/help-center/en/articles/12590157-what-is-education-pro
• Price-change, auto-renewal, cancellation and no-refund clauses in the Terms of Service (sections 2.2–2.4): https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/legal/terms-of-service
• Training on by default for Free/Pro/Max, opt-out mechanics, non-retroactive opt-out, and Enterprise never trained on: https://www.perplexity.ai/help-center/en/articles/11564572-data-collection-at-perplexity
• AI data retention toggle and Incognito searches never stored: https://www.perplexity.ai/help-center/en/articles/10352990-account-settings
• Privacy notice — data used to improve AI models, retention wording, Incognito limits and tracking warning: https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/legal/privacy-policy
• File retention of 30 days (7 days Enterprise Pro) and public shared sessions exposing uploads: https://www.perplexity.ai/help-center/en/articles/10354810-security-and-privacy-with-file-uploads
• Refund windows — 14 days EU/UK/Turkey, 7 days Korea/Brazil, 24 hours monthly and 72 hours annual for others, and Apple/Google refund routes: https://www.perplexity.ai/help-center/en/articles/10354288-refunds
• How to cancel on web, iOS and Android, app-store billing control, and deleting an account not cancelling a subscription: https://www.perplexity.ai/help-center/en/articles/10354283-canceling-a-subscription
• Reuters reporting of $200 million funding commitments at a $20 billion valuation: https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/info-tech/perplexity-finalises-20-billion-valuation-round-the-information-reports/article70036339.ece
• Reuters reporting of the New York Times lawsuit and the Reddit and Dow Jones disputes: https://goldsea.com/article_details/new-york-times-sues-perplexity-for-copyright-infringement