# Pricing

## Estimate your cost

## Router API Pricing

Router API usage is billed per token at each model's published rates — there are no per-request fees. Every model has its own input and output rate, with cache reads billed at the model's discounted cache-read rate and reasoning tokens billed at the output rate. You are always billed at the requested model's rates, regardless of how the request is served.

See [Router Models & Pricing](/guides/router-api-models) for the full per-model rate card, including cache-write rates and long-context pricing.

## Agent API Pricing

The Agent API provides access to third-party models from providers including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI, Z.AI, Moonshot AI, and NVIDIA with **transparent, token-based pricing** at each model's published rates.

### Model Pricing

Agent API pricing varies by provider and model, with each provider offering multiple models at different price points.

:::card{title="View Complete Third-Party Model Pricing" href="/guides/agent-api-models" icon="table"}
See the full pricing breakdown for all available models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI, Z.AI, Moonshot AI, and NVIDIA, including cache rates and provider documentation links on the [Agent API Models page](/guides/agent-api-models).
:::

### Tool Pricing

When using tools with the Agent API:

| Tool                           |          Price         | Description                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        |
| ------------------------------ | :--------------------: | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **`web_search` (standard)**    | $0.0025 per invocation | Standard web search with `search_type: "web"`. $2.50 per 1,000 invocations                                                                                                                                                                                                                         |
| **`web_search` (Fast Search)** |  $0.001 per invocation | The same tool with `search_type: "fast"`. $1.00 per 1,000 invocations. See [Fast Search](/guides/agent-api-search-fast-search)                                                                                                                                                                     |
| **`fetch_url`**                | $0.0005 per invocation | Fetches and extracts content from specific URLs                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    |
| **`people_search`**            |  $0.005 per invocation | Looks up professionals, employees, and people. $5 per 1,000 tool invocations                                                                                                                                                                                                                       |
| **`finance_search`**           |  $0.005 per invocation | Retrieves financial data and market information. $5 per 1,000 tool invocations                                                                                                                                                                                                                     |
| **`sandbox`**                  |    $0.03 per session   | Isolated container for executing code during an Agent API request. A session covers up to 20 minutes of active use for billing purposes — this is the billing window, not a runtime cap. SDK search queries made from inside the sandbox are billed at $0.0025 per request (same as `web_search`). |

:::callout{intent="note"}
Most tool costs are per invocation. `sandbox` is billed per container session — a 20-minute billing window per container, not a runtime cap — plus per SDK search query made from inside it. Tool costs are separate from model token costs.
:::

## Search API Pricing

| API                                                                     | Price per 1K requests | Description                                                 |
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | :-------------------: | ----------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Search API**                                                          |         $5.00         | Raw web search results with advanced filtering              |
| **Search API with [Fast Search](/guides/agent-api-search-fast-search)** |         $1.00         | Lower-latency web search results. Set `search_type: "fast"` |

:::callout{intent="note"}
**Billing unit:** Search API charges for each successful `POST /search` request, not for each query in the request. A successful request containing an array of up to five queries is one billing unit. Invalid requests, rate-limited requests, and upstream failures are not billed. A successful response is billed even when it returns no results. There are no additional token-based charges.
:::

## Embeddings API Pricing

Generate high-quality text embeddings for semantic search, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and other machine learning applications.

### Standard Embeddings

| Model                | Dimensions | Price ($/1M tokens) |
| -------------------- | :--------: | :-----------------: |
| `pplx-embed-v1-0.6b` |    1024    |        $0.004       |
| `pplx-embed-v1-4b`   |    2560    |        $0.03        |

### Contextualized Embeddings

| Model                        | Dimensions | Price ($/1M tokens) |
| ---------------------------- | :--------: | :-----------------: |
| `pplx-embed-context-v1-0.6b` |    1024    |        $0.008       |
| `pplx-embed-context-v1-4b`   |    2560    |        $0.05        |

:::card{title="View Embeddings API Documentation" href="/guides/embeddings-api-quickstart" icon="cube"}
Learn how to use the Embeddings API for semantic search, RAG, and more.
:::

:::::accordion-group
::::accordion{title="Token and Cost Glossary"}
### Input Tokens

The number of tokens in your prompt or message to the API. This includes:

- Your question or instruction
- Any context or examples you provide
- System messages and formatting

**Example:** "What is the weather in New York?" = \~8 input tokens

### Output Tokens

The number of tokens in the API's response. This includes:

- The generated answer or content
- Any explanations or additional context
- Search results and references

**Example:** "The weather in New York is currently sunny with a temperature of 72°F." = \~15 output tokens

### Search Context Size vs Context Window

**Search context size** is _not_ the same as the **context window**.

- **Search context size**: How much web information is retrieved during search
- **Context window**: Maximum tokens the model can process in one request (affects token limits)

:::callout{intent="info"}
**Token Calculation:** 1 token ≈ 4 characters in English text. The exact count may vary based on language and content complexity.
:::
::::
:::::

## Cost Examples

::::card-grid
:::card{title="Agent API Web Search" icon="calculator"}
**`openai/gpt-5.6-terra`** • 500 input + 200 output tokens • 1 web search

| Component     | Cost        |
| ------------- | ----------- |
| Input tokens  | $0.001      |
| Output tokens | $0.0024     |
| `web_search`  | $0.0025     |
| **Total**     | **$0.0059** |
:::

:::card{title="Agent API Research Preset" icon="chart-area-line"}
**`low` preset representative run** • 2,000 input + 1,000 output tokens • 1 web search + 1 fetch

| Component           | Cost       |
| ------------------- | ---------- |
| Model input tokens  | $0.001     |
| Model output tokens | $0.003     |
| `web_search`        | $0.0025    |
| `fetch_url`         | $0.0005    |
| **Total**           | **$0.007** |
:::
::::

Actual preset costs vary with the selected model, token usage, and tool invocations. When present on a completed response, `usage.cost.total_cost` reports the calculated request cost.

## Purchase Options

::::card-grid
:::card{title="Perplexity API Platform on AWS Marketplace" href="/guides/admin-management-resources-aws-marketplace" icon="aws" arrow="true"}
Purchase API credits through AWS Marketplace with consolidated billing and enterprise procurement.
:::

:::card{title="Contact Sales Team" href="https://perplexity.typeform.com/to/m3WnMaG6" icon="file-pencil"}
Fill out our enterprise inquiry form to discuss custom pricing, dedicated support, and enterprise features for teams and organizations.
:::
::::

## Related pages

- [Admin & Management](./admin-management-index.md)
- [Agent API](./agent-api-2-index.md)
- [Agent API](./agent-api-index.md)
- [Analytics API](./analytics-api-index.md)
- [Authentication](./authentication-index.md)
- [Changelog](../changelog.md)
- [Cookbook](./cookbook-2-index.md)
- [Embeddings API](./embeddings-api-2-index.md)
- [Embeddings API](./embeddings-api-index.md)
- [Getting Started](./getting-started-index.md)

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