Kagi Assistant vs Perplexity Comparison

• Starter (monthly): USD 5.00/month, 300 searches/month, Kagi Assistant in Quick mode
• Starter (annual): USD 4.50/month billed as $54/year (10% annual discount)
• Professional (monthly): USD 10.00/month, unlimited search, Assistant Quick mode with a larger monthly allowance
• Professional (annual): USD 9.00/month billed as $108/year (10% annual discount)
• Ultimate (monthly): USD 25.00/month, unlimited search, Assistant Research mode plus flagship models
• Ultimate (annual): USD 22.50/month billed as $270/year (10% annual discount)

• Pro (individual, monthly): $20/mo billed monthly — shown as $17/mo equivalent when billed annually
• Max (individual, monthly): $200/mo billed monthly — shown as $167/mo equivalent when billed annually

No standing free tier for Assistant. The Trial plan offers 100 searches and 100 Assistant interactions before requiring a paid plan, and still requires creating an account.

Free is listed as good for limited daily usage, with basic AI models and limited file uploads. The model picker, the larger Deep Research and file-upload allowances, and Computer access are Pro and Max features.

Conversation threads are automatically deleted after one day by default; a thread can also be deleted immediately by hand. A thread a user reports (for example, to flag a bug) is retained for 30 days before deletion for debugging purposes. Requests to the model backend are not saved or tied to a customer account by default, though Kagi notes they may be retained briefly as part of request debugging. On the model-provider side, retention varies by provider and is documented separately — see the Privacy Architecture section.

Perplexity states it retains personal information as long as the account is active and removes it from its servers within 30 days of account deletion, which is requested through a form rather than a settings button. Incognito sessions expire within 24 hours and are not recoverable. Opting out of AI training applies only to data collected after the opt-out; data already collected for training cannot be removed.

Kagi Inc. is a Delaware Public Benefit Corporation headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Perplexity AI, Inc., a privately held company headquartered in San Francisco, California. VeraSafe is appointed as its GDPR Article 27 representative for users in the EU and UK, and Perplexity certifies to the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework.