Perplexity on Stripe Projects

Overview

Stripe Projects provisions third-party services from your terminal or coding agent. One command creates a Perplexity API project in your own account, mints a key, and writes it to your Stripe project’s .env:

stripe projects add perplexity/api

perplexity/api is the service. Once added, update, rotate, and remove refer to it by the resource name perplexity-api, and account-level commands like open, spend, and link take the provider name perplexity. A Perplexity API project is the billing and key boundary in the API Console. The one Stripe Projects creates is a normal project in your account. Open it in the API Console any time to see balance, usage, keys, and billing settings. On this page, “Stripe project” means the directory the CLI manages and “Perplexity API project” means the API project it provisions.

Prerequisites

A Stripe account
The Stripe CLI with the Projects plugin:

brew install stripe/stripe-cli/stripe
stripe plugin install projects

npm install -g @stripe/cli
stripe plugin install projects

You don’t need an existing Perplexity account. The add flow creates one from your Stripe-verified email if needed. You do need a payment method on your Stripe account: Stripe asks for one before provisioning any paid service.

Quickstart

Initialize a Stripe project

stripe projects init my-app

The first run signs you in to Stripe and creates a Stripe project in the current directory. If your Stripe account has no payment method yet, add one now so the next step doesn’t stop at a Checkout page:

stripe projects billing add

Add Perplexity

stripe projects add perplexity/api

This creates a Perplexity API project, mints a key, and writes it to .env as PERPLEXITY_API_KEY:Creating a new Perplexity API project prompts for a $10 minimum credit purchase, charged to your Stripe account’s payment method. See Billing and credits for the full rules.

Make your first request

The official SDKs read PERPLEXITY_API_KEY from the environment. The examples use the low preset, which sets a default model and web search configuration:

from perplexity import Perplexity

client = Perplexity()  # reads PERPLEXITY_API_KEY from the environment

response = client.responses.create(
    preset="low",
    input="Summarize the top AI infrastructure news from this week.",
)

print(response.output_text)

import Perplexity from "@perplexity-ai/perplexity_ai";

const client = new Perplexity(); // reads PERPLEXITY_API_KEY from the environment

const response = await client.responses.create({
  preset: "low",
  input: "Summarize the top AI infrastructure news from this week.",
});

console.log(response.output_text);

curl https://api.perplexity.ai/v1/agent \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $PERPLEXITY_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "preset": "low",
    "input": "Summarize the top AI infrastructure news from this week."
  }' | jq

If you get text back, the key is live and billing is wired up. The SDKs expose it as output_text; the raw cURL response has it as a message item inside output. The same key works across the API platform, including Agent API and Search API.

To open the Perplexity API project in the API Console and see usage, balance, and keys:

stripe projects open perplexity

Billing and credits

Perplexity API usage is prepaid: you buy credits, usage draws the balance down. For a Perplexity API project created by Stripe Projects, credit purchases charge your Stripe account’s payment method, so you never enter a card on the Perplexity side. On provision

Creating a new dedicated Perplexity API project prompts for a $10 minimum initial credit purchase.
If you already administer a Perplexity API project, the CLI offers to connect it instead of creating a new one. Connected projects keep their existing Perplexity billing, so credit purchases for them stay in the API Console (see Connect an existing Perplexity API project).

Top up after provisioning

# resource name, then service
stripe projects update perplexity-api perplexity/api \
  --config '{"buy_credits_usd": 25}'

Setting	When	What it does
`initial_credit_usd`	at `add`	One-time credit purchase at provision (min $10)
`buy_credits_usd`	at `update`	One-time top-up (min $10)
`auto_recharge`	anytime	Automatically buy credits when the balance runs low. Requires `recharge_amount_usd` when turned on
`recharge_amount_usd`	with `auto_recharge`	Amount purchased by each automatic recharge (min $10)

The CLI prompts for these when needed, and agents pass them with --config. The same settings are editable in the API Console, and changes from either place apply to the same Perplexity API project. Check spend

stripe projects spend perplexity

Stripe applies a monthly spending limit per provider. Adjust it with stripe projects billing update --limit 50 --provider perplexity. A purchase that would exceed the limit is declined; raise the limit and retry. If you run out of credits, the key is blocked until you add more. Enable auto_recharge ahead of time so credits are added automatically when the balance runs low.

Connect an existing Perplexity API project

Your Stripe account connects to exactly one Perplexity API project. The first time you run add, if your Stripe-verified email already administers Perplexity API projects, the CLI asks whether to create a new one or connect an existing one:

Create a new dedicated Perplexity API project (recommended)
One of your existing Perplexity API projects, listed by name

Each additional Stripe project you run add in gets its own API key, all minted inside that one Perplexity API project. Other users on the same Stripe account can run add too, but only if they are an Admin of that Perplexity API project. You can also make this choice up front, before adding Perplexity to a Stripe project:

stripe projects link perplexity

If you connect an existing Perplexity API project, it keeps its existing Perplexity billing. Credit purchases through Stripe Projects open that project’s billing page in the API Console instead of charging your Stripe payment method. Only keys minted through Stripe Projects are visible to Stripe; your other keys are not.

Rotate or remove the key

stripe projects rotate perplexity-api   # mint a new key, update .env
stripe projects remove perplexity-api   # deprovision and revoke

Rotate mints a fresh key and updates .env. The old key keeps working for 24 hours so running deployments don’t break mid-rotation.
Remove deprovisions this Stripe project’s key. Your Perplexity API project, credits, and any other keys are untouched, and it stays visible in the API Console.

remove revokes immediately, including a rotated-out key still inside its 24-hour grace window.

To disconnect Perplexity from your Stripe account entirely, delete the Perplexity API project in the API Console. That revokes every key in it and releases the Stripe account, so the next add creates or connects a fresh Perplexity API project. The console only deletes a project whose credit balance is zero. stripe projects unlink perplexity only forgets the connection in the current Stripe project directory; the Perplexity API project and its keys are untouched, and link reconnects to it.

Use with coding agents

Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, and other agents can run the full add flow non-interactively.

Install the agent skill

stripe projects init writes a skill into the Stripe project (Claude Code, Cursor, and AGENTS.md variants):To install the skill globally instead:

npx skills add https://docs.stripe.com --skill stripe-projects -g -y

Authorize once

Attach a payment method before the agent session so it never hits a browser prompt:

stripe login                # if you haven't yet
stripe projects billing add

Let the agent provision

Agents use the non-interactive form. --confirm-paid-service is required when a purchase is involved:

stripe projects add perplexity/api \
  --config '{"initial_credit_usd": 10}' \
  --json --yes --confirm-paid-service --accept-tos

Then try a prompt like:

Add Perplexity to this app with Stripe Projects, then build a /research endpoint that calls the Agent API with the low preset.

Next steps

Agent API quickstart

Presets, tools, and the full Agent API surface for your first build.

Search API quickstart

Ranked, real-time web results as structured data.

Pricing

What credits buy across models, tools, and APIs.

Getting Started

Router API

Agent API

Search API

Search SDK

Embeddings API

Perplexity SDK

Admin & Management

Resources

Legacy API

Perplexity on Stripe Projects

Overview

Prerequisites

Quickstart

Billing and credits

Connect an existing Perplexity API project

Rotate or remove the key

Use with coding agents

Next steps

Agent API quickstart

Search API quickstart

Pricing

​Overview

​Prerequisites

​Quickstart

​Billing and credits

​Connect an existing Perplexity API project

​Rotate or remove the key

​Use with coding agents

​Next steps

Agent API quickstart

Search API quickstart

Pricing

Overview

Prerequisites

Quickstart

Billing and credits

Connect an existing Perplexity API project

Rotate or remove the key

Use with coding agents

Next steps