Perplexity is the sharper search engine at $20; Felo costs $14.99 and turns research into slides and documents. Prices, limits and which fits your work.
These two used to be compared on one feature: Perplexity gave you a cited answer, Felo drew you a mind map. That framing is out of date. Perplexity has grown into a research platform with Deep Research, Labs, Spaces and its free Comet browser, while Felo has become a creation workspace where search feeds AI Slides, LiveDoc documents, images and video. They overlap on search and part ways on almost everything after it.
Perplexity retrieves first and answers second. Nearly every question triggers a web search, and the answer arrives with numbered citations you can check in seconds. Paid plans add Deep Research for longer reports, Labs for building reports and small apps, Spaces for organizing research, and image and video generation.
Felo still searches, with quick and professional modes, a Research agent and mind maps you can export. But its home screen leads with creation tools: AI Slides, AI Designer, text and image to video, and LiveDoc, a shared canvas where documents, decks and agents sit together. Felo Inc. is a Tokyo startup founded in 2024, and its search was designed for Japanese, Korean and Chinese as much as English.
| Perplexity | Felo AI | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Cited answers, limited Pro searches | Unlimited quick search, 5 professional searches and 3 file analyses a day, 200 credits a day |
| Main paid plan | Pro, $20 a month or $200 a year | Pro, $14.99 a month or $12.50 a month billed yearly |
| How usage is counted | Usage limits per plan | 15,000 credits a month plus 200 a day, then 300 professional searches a day |
| Students | Pro for $10 a month | No student price listed |
| Top tier | Max, $200 a month | Enterprise by quote |
| Browser | Comet, free | Extension plus iOS and Android apps |
| Creation tools | Labs, images and video on paid plans | AI Slides, LiveDoc, AI Designer, video on Pro |
| API | Separate developer platform | Included with Pro through openapi.felo.ai |
Felo prices from its pricing page and Perplexity prices from our Perplexity review on October 1, 2026.
Felo is cheaper at the main tier, and its credits make costs visible: one credit is a tenth of a cent, a professional search costs 15 and a Research agent run 150. Perplexity is simpler to think about for searching, and it has a student price and a $200 Max plan for very heavy users.
Search quality and citations come first. Perplexity's whole product is built around finding sources and attributing every claim, so checking an answer is a ten-second step. For journalism, due diligence, market research or homework where accuracy matters, that discipline is the reason to choose it. General assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini search the web too, but they decide when to search; Perplexity searches by default.
It also has the more complete research toolkit around search. Spaces keep sources and threads together for a project, Deep Research produces long cited reports, and Comet brings the same assistant into a free browser with an agent that can work across websites. Perplexity is the larger company with the more polished apps, and its answers arrive faster for simple questions.
Felo wins when research has to become something. AI Slides turns a prompt, a thread or a document into a deck, can follow a PowerPoint template you upload so the result matches your company's design, and exports to PPTX. LiveDoc turns a transcript or a stack of files into a document, a web page or slides on one shared canvas, and AI Designer and the video tools cover images and clips without leaving the workspace.
It also suits multilingual teams. Felo's users are concentrated in Japan, Korea and Taiwan, its slides can be generated or translated across languages, and it ships agents for Japanese business documents such as invoices and résumés. Add the lower price and API access included in Pro, and Felo is the better value for people who use its creation side. Our Felo AI review covers those tools in detail.
| Job | Better choice | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Quick factual questions | Perplexity | Faster, with citations on every claim |
| Long cited research report | Perplexity | Deep Research and Spaces |
| Research that ends as a slide deck | Felo | AI Slides with your own PowerPoint template |
| Meeting transcript into a document or deck | Felo | LiveDoc |
| Searching and writing in Japanese or Korean | Felo | Built for East Asian languages |
| An AI browser with an agent | Perplexity | Comet is free |
| Lowest monthly price for a paid plan | Felo | $12.50 billed yearly |
The verdict goes to Perplexity because most people choosing between these two want a better search engine, and that is what Perplexity does best. Felo is the better buy for consultants, marketers and teams in East Asia whose searches end in decks and documents, and its free plan makes it easy to keep alongside Perplexity for those jobs. For other research tools, NotebookLM is free and grounded in your own files, and Gamma is the more refined dedicated deck builder.
For search alone, Perplexity is the stronger product, with faster cited answers and more polish. Felo is a good alternative if you also want to turn research into slide decks, documents or images in the same tool, if you search in Japanese, Korean or Chinese, or if you want a cheaper paid plan.
Felo. Its Pro plan costs $14.99 a month or $12.50 a month billed yearly, against $20 a month or $200 a year for Perplexity Pro. Perplexity offers eligible students Pro for $10 a month, and its top Max plan costs $200 a month. Both have free plans.
Perplexity's free plan gives cited answers with a limited number of Pro searches. Felo's free Standard plan gives unlimited quick searches, 5 professional searches and 3 file analyses a day and 200 bonus credits daily, but leaves out AI Slides, AI Designer, custom agents and video.
Felo was built for it. The Tokyo startup designed its search for non-English languages, and most of its users are in Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Perplexity handles other languages well too, but Felo's slides and documents can also be generated and translated in those languages, which suits teams working across Japanese and English.
Perplexity does: Comet, a Chromium browser with Perplexity's assistant and agent in every tab, free for everyone since October 2025. Felo has a browser extension and iOS and Android apps rather than its own browser.
Yes, and the free plans make that cheap to try. A common split is Perplexity for daily questions and fact-checking, and Felo when a search has to become a presentation or report. Paying for both costs $34.99 a month on monthly billing.