Perplexity AI vs You.com vs Elicit
A side-by-side look at scores, pricing and features — with RECATOOLS' ASEAN-aware verdict for each.
Perplexity AI
Answer engine that cites its sources, now with a browser and an agent
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You.com
Web search, answer and research APIs built for AI agents
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Elicit
AI literature search, extraction and systematic reviews with sentence-...
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| RECATOOLS Score | 8.4 / 10 | 7 / 10 | 7.6 / 10 |
| Capability | |||
| Value for money | |||
| Ease of use | |||
| ASEAN readiness | |||
| API quality | |||
| Pricing | Freemium | Usage_based | Freemium |
| Free tier | Free plan: answers with citations and basic AI models, for limited daily usage | 100 Web Search queries a day via the MCP server with no account; signup API credit valid 60 days (FAQ says $100) | Basic: unlimited search of 138M+ papers, unlimited summaries and full-text paper chat, Zotero import; limited Research Agent and Reports usage |
| Paid from | $20/month or $200/year (Pro); Max $200/month or $2,000/year | $1 per 1,000 pages (Contents API), pay as you go | From $11/month (academic Plus billed yearly, or $19 monthly); industry Pro $49/month yearly |
| Has API | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Open source | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Free to use | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Users | 30M+ standalone monthly active users (100M+ across all products, 2026) | 1B+ queries/month (via API/platform); no verified public figure for consumer user count | 200k+ researchers |
| Founded | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 |
| Maker | Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, Andy Konwinski | Richard Socher, Bryan McCann | Andreas Stuhlmuller |
| Verdict | Perplexity is still the quickest way to get a sourced answer: each reply links to the pages behind it, so verification takes seconds. Pro at $20 a month adds Deep Research, model choice and Computer credits; Max at $200... |
You.com is now developer infrastructure, and the rate card is clear: $5 per thousand searches, $1 per thousand pages extracted, and research calls from $12 to $1,200 per thousand depending on how hard you want it to dig.... |
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... |
| Full review → | Directory listing → | Full review → |
Comparisons cover up to 4 tools. Scores are RECATOOLS editorial assessments; verify current pricing on each vendor's site.