Minute Verdict
Comet is a browser built around Perplexity’s assistant: you install it, keep your tabs, and a sidebar reads the page in front of you, answers questions about it and runs tasks such as drafting a reply or comparing how outlets covered a story. It costs nothing to install and Comet Assistant is included on the free plan. Pro at $17 a month billed yearly adds Computer, deep research and the choice of model; Max at $167 a month billed yearly adds 10,000 monthly credits and the advanced models that power the assistant.
Best for: someone who already pays for Perplexity Pro and works with twenty tabs open. Not for: someone who wants a month-to-month price, or a browser that never reads the page. From: $17/mo billed yearly, checked November 11, 2026
What Comet does
Comet is a standalone browser you download, not an extension you bolt onto Chrome. That matters more than it sounds: an extension can see the page, a browser can drive the whole session, which is why Comet’s examples are tasks rather than questions. Ask it to compare how different outlets covered the same story and it works across tabs. Ask it to draft a reply that shares your upcoming schedule and it goes looking for the schedule. Ask it to build a basic website, plan a week of study from a syllabus, or buy an office chair, and the assistant leaves the tab it started in.
The downloads cover Mac, Windows, iOS and Android from one page, so the phone is part of the offer rather than an afterthought. Perplexity’s enterprise page makes the same promise in a work register, describing Comet as the place to answer questions, respond to emails and take care of busywork from a browser window on desktop or phone.
What it is not is a research tool on its own. The answers, the citations and the deeper reports come from the Perplexity subscription behind the sidebar, which is why the price of Comet is really the price of a Perplexity plan. Buy the browser and you have bought a window; the work happens on the other side of it.
An assistant that reads page content is exposed to whatever a page decides to put in it, and Comet’s visible answer to that is a control: Comet Assistant can be paused or stopped from the sidebar while you browse. Whether that is enough for a page written to hijack the assistant is a question no marketing page settles, and the browser does not ship a number for it, so treat the pause button as the practical defence rather than a guarantee.
On this page
What you get for the money
| Plan | Price | What is included | The limit that matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Answers with citations, Comet Assistant, basic models, limited daily usage | The daily cap is not quantified |
| Pro | $17/month billed yearly | Expanded Computer access, 4,000 bonus credits, deep research, top AI models, model choice, documents and apps, higher limits and memory | Yearly billing only, credits marked limited in time |
| Max | $167/month billed yearly | Maximum Computer usage, 35,000 bonus credits, 10,000 monthly credits, frontier models, priority on new features | 9.8 times Pro, and the advanced models in the assistant live here |
The $17 buys the agentic side rather than the answering side: Computer, deep research and a model selector, with 4,000 credits to spend on top. On twelve months that is $204 on Pro and $2,004 on Max, so the decision is not a rounding error at the top of the table. The Perplexity pricing breakdown carries the credit cost per task, which is the number to check if Perplexity Computer is what you came for.
The line worth reading twice is the Comet row of the plan comparison. Comet Assistant is marked on all three plans, which means the sidebar is not a paid feature. The row below it, advanced models powering Comet Assistant, is marked on Max only. So the free browser gives you the assistant, Pro gives you a faster and deeper brain behind the rest of the product, and Max gives you the better brain inside the browser itself.
Where it falls short
Comet publishes no month-to-month price. Both paid plans carry a yearly-billed rate, and a buyer who wants to leave after a month has no published number to weigh, only a checkout page.
The best model in the assistant is the most expensive plan. At $167 a month billed yearly, the advanced models behind Comet Assistant cost more than ten times the free browser, and the table gives no way to buy that row alone.
The free limit is a word, not a number. Daily usage is described as limited on the plan card and weekly usage is described as limited in the plan questions, so the honest reading is that the cap exists and is not published in a form you can plan against.
The credit bonuses on Pro and Max are labelled limited time, so the first year and the second year are not the same purchase. Anything you justify with 4,000 credits should still make sense when the bonus stops.
And nothing in the plan table pairs the assistant with a published behaviour on untrusted pages. There is a pause control and there is a citation habit, which helps a reader check an answer, but neither is a stated limit on what an assistant will do when a page instructs it.
Comet alternatives
Comet competes with browsers, but the three routes below are what a Comet buyer actually compares, because they deliver the assistant without changing where you browse. The yardstick is the $17 Pro month, since that is the first tier with the full Perplexity toolset behind the sidebar.
- Perplexity in the browser you already use, free with citations and $17 a month billed yearly for Pro: same assistant, no new browser to learn, and you keep your extensions. Our Perplexity review.
- Google AI Studio, free tier on the Gemini developer API and $2 per million input tokens on Gemini 4 Argon through November 30, 2026: the route for someone who wants the model rather than the browser. Our Google AI Studio review.
- DeepSeek, free chat with API tokens from $0.15 per million input: the budget route when the task is an answer and not a browser action. Our DeepSeek review.
None of the three runs a sidebar that acts on the page you are reading, which is the one thing Comet does that they do not.
Who it is for: Comet
Comet suits people whose browser is already where the work happens: analysts comparing coverage, recruiters answering mail, students pulling a week out of a syllabus. If you already pay for Perplexity Pro, the browser is a free extra that turns the tab you are reading into context the assistant can use, and that is the strongest case for installing it.
It does not suit someone who wants the cheapest way to get cited answers, because the free Perplexity tab does that without a download. It does not suit anyone who needs a monthly exit either, or a team that will not accept a browser whose assistant reads every page by default. If the browsing part is not the point, the AI tools directory lists the assistants that answer without one.
How we checked
This is a research review: we have not used Comet, so there is no hands-on score, no timing and no sample of its answers. We read the Comet page, the plan comparison and the plan page on November 11, 2026, and the prices on this page carry that date. We did not verify how the assistant behaves on a page written to manipulate it, and we could not read the free plan’s daily cap because no figure is published. A hands-on pass would test three things: a shopping task end to end, the assistant’s behaviour on a page carrying hidden instructions, and what the free cap allows in a working day.
What to do next
Install Comet on the plan you already pay for and use the free tier for a week before adding anything. If the sidebar earns its place, Pro at $17 a month billed yearly is the sensible step, since it buys Computer, deep research and model choice rather than a better browser. Pay for Max only if the assistant itself, with the advanced models behind it, is the reason you open the browser, because $167 is a yearly bill for a row in a table.
FAQ
Is Perplexity Comet free? Yes. The browser installs at no cost and Comet Assistant is included on the free plan, which caps daily use without publishing a number.
How much does Comet cost? Nothing on its own. The paid routes are Perplexity Pro at $17 a month billed yearly and Max at $167 a month billed yearly, both billed annually rather than monthly.
Do I need Pro to use the assistant? No. Comet Assistant is marked on all three plans. Pro adds Computer access, deep research, model choice and 4,000 credits, and Max adds the advanced models that power the assistant.
What platforms does Comet run on? Mac, Windows, iOS and Android, all offered from the same download page.
Can I turn the assistant off? Yes. Comet Assistant can be paused or stopped from the sidebar while you browse.
Sources
Sources
- https://www.perplexity.ai/comet (checked November 11, 2026)
- https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/pricing (checked November 11, 2026)
- https://www.perplexity.ai/pro (checked November 11, 2026)
- https://www.perplexity.ai/enterprise (checked November 11, 2026)
Update log
November 11, 2026: first publication, research review, plans and prices read on the Perplexity plan comparison and plan pages.
