ChatGPT vs Consensus vs Elicit vs Perplexity Pro
A side-by-side look at scores, pricing and features — with RECATOOLS' ASEAN-aware verdict for each.
ChatGPT
OpenAI's assistant, now on GPT-6, with Work agents and Codex built in
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Consensus
AI search engine that shows what the research says
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Elicit
AI literature search, extraction and systematic reviews with sentence-...
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Perplexity Pro
Perplexity's $17-a-month tier: model choice, Deep Research and Compute...
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| RECATOOLS Score | 9.2 / 10 | 7.3 / 10 | 7.6 / 10 | 8.3 / 10 |
| Capability | ||||
| Value for money | ||||
| Ease of use | ||||
| ASEAN readiness | ||||
| API quality | ||||
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium | Freemium | Subscription |
| Free tier | Unlimited text chats with GPT-6 Luna (abuse guardrails apply); limited uploads, images, voice, deep research, Codex and Work | Basic paper search, 10 Pro messages and up to 3 Deep reviews a month | Basic: unlimited search of 138M+ papers, unlimited summaries and full-text paper chat, Zotero import; limited Research Agent and Reports usage | — |
| Paid from | SGD 11/month (Go, Singapore price); Plus $20/month; Pro from $100/month | Pro $12/mo billed annually ($20 monthly); Deep $45/mo annually ($65 monthly) | From $11/month (academic Plus billed yearly, or $19 monthly); industry Pro $49/month yearly | $17/month billed annually, with no month-to-month Pro price on the plan pages |
| Has API | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Open source | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Free to use | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Users | ~900M weekly active users (1B+ monthly active app users as of mid-2026) | 500k+ users | 200k+ researchers | 1m+ Pro subscribers |
| Founded | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2023 |
| Maker | OpenAI | Eric Olson, Christian Salem | Andreas Stuhlmuller | Perplexity AI, Inc. |
| Verdict | ChatGPT remains the default general-purpose assistant: GPT-6 since October 2026, Intelligent UI answers, voice, images, deep research, and ChatGPT Work and Codex for longer agent jobs, all in one app. The free plan now o... |
Consensus answers research questions from academic literature rather than the open web: a cited synthesis, natural-language filters for population, design and time frame, and a Consensus Meter showing how far studies agr... |
Elicit is the most complete AI tool for structured literature work: search, screening, extraction tables and cited reports in one place, with every claim tied to a source sentence. Published studies support it as a secon... |
Pro is a fair upgrade for people who search and research daily: you choose among seven current models, get Deep Research and bigger upload limits, and can hand some multi-step work to Perplexity Computer each week. Every... |
| Full review → | Full review → | Full review → | Full review → |
Comparisons cover up to 4 tools. Scores are RECATOOLS editorial assessments; verify current pricing on each vendor's site.