Search API Overview

What you get

The Search API is one endpoint, POST https://api.perplexity.ai/search. You send a query and get back ranked web results as structured data for your own code to filter, store, or hand to a model. There is no generated answer and no token billing. Each result has:

Field	Contents
`title`	Title of the page
`url`	URL of the page
`snippet`	Content extracted from the page, sized by `max_tokens_per_page`
`date`	Publication date, or `null`
`last_updated`	Date the page was last updated, or `null`

The response also carries a request id. A server_time field is present and may be null.

from perplexity import Perplexity

client = Perplexity()

search = client.search.create(
    query="latest AI developments 2025",
    max_results=3
)

for result in search.results:
    print(f"{result.title}: {result.url}")

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

const client = new Perplexity();

const search = await client.search.create({
    query: "latest AI developments 2025",
    max_results: 3
});

for (const result of search.results) {
    console.log(`${result.title}: ${result.url}`);
}

curl -X POST https://api.perplexity.ai/search \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $PERPLEXITY_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query": "latest AI developments 2025", "max_results": 3}'

Response

{
  "results": [
    {
      "title": "...",
      "url": "https://...",
      "snippet": "...",
      "date": "2025-01-15",
      "last_updated": "2025-01-16"
    }
  ],
  "id": "e38104d5-6bd7-4d82-bc4e-0a21179d1f77",
  "server_time": null
}

Controls

Parameter	What it does	Limits
`query`	One query, or an array of related queries processed independently	Up to 5 queries per request
`max_results`	Number of results to return	1 to 20 for web search, up to 50 for people search; default 10
`search_type`	`web` (default), `fast` for lower latency and lower cost, or `people`	See Fast Search and People Search
`max_tokens`, `max_tokens_per_page`	How much page content to extract, in total and per result	1 to 1,000,000 tokens each
`search_domain_filter`	Include only, or exclude with a `-` prefix, specific domains	Up to 20 domains, one mode per request
`search_language_filter`	Restrict results to languages	Up to 20 ISO 639-1 codes
`search_recency_filter`	`hour`, `day`, `week`, `month`, or `year`
`search_after_date_filter`, `search_before_date_filter`, `last_updated_after_filter`, `last_updated_before_filter`	Publication and update date windows	`MM/DD/YYYY`
`country`	Return results more relevant to a region	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code

Full parameter reference: POST /search. Agent API fields such as model, preset, instructions, and tools are not part of a search request.

Price and rate limit

Item	Detail
Web search	$5.00 per 1,000 successful requests
Fast Search (`search_type: "fast"`)	$1.00 per 1,000 successful requests
Billing unit	One successful `POST /search` request. A request with five queries is one billing unit. Invalid, rate-limited, and failed requests are not billed. No token charges.
Rate limit	50 query units per second, same for every usage tier. Each query in a multi-query request counts as one unit.

Details: Search API pricing and Search API rate limits.

Search API or Agent API

You want	Use
Ranked results your code filters, stores, or feeds to your own model	Search API
A finished answer with citations, written by a model that searched for you	Agent API with the `web_search` tool
Sources, not prose, returned to an agent you run on another provider	Search API as a function tool
Sources returned to an agent that already runs on the Agent API	The Agent API `web_search` tool

Ways to call it

Quickstart with the Perplexity Python library, the TypeScript SDK, and cURL
Perplexity CLI for the same ranked results as JSON from a shell
As a function tool in the OpenAI, Anthropic, and Gemini SDKs
Search SDK, a Python library for composing multi-step retrieval in code
Interactive Playground, no API key required

Getting Started

Orchestrator API

Agent API

Search API

Search SDK

Embeddings API

Decisions API

Perplexity SDK

Admin & Management

Resources

What you get

Controls

Price and rate limit

Search API or Agent API

Ways to call it

​What you get

​Controls

​Price and rate limit

​Search API or Agent API

​Ways to call it

What you get

Controls

Price and rate limit

Search API or Agent API

Ways to call it