What is Perplexity MCP?

Perplexity MCP is a Search MCP server. Give your AI agent live web search and deep research via Perplexity's Sonar API.

Is Perplexity MCP free?

Perplexity MCP uses a freemium pricing model, starting at Free tier available, paid from $0.001/1k tokens. Visit the website for current pricing.

How do I install Perplexity MCP?

You can install Perplexity MCP with the command shown on this page. It runs as an MCP server inside any MCP-compatible client such as Claude Desktop, Cursor, or Windsurf.

Which AI clients work with Perplexity MCP?

Perplexity MCP is compatible with Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code, n8n and any other MCP-compliant client.

Perplexity MCP

Give your AI agent live web search and deep research via Perplexity's Sonar API

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Perplexity MCP

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Maintenance status

Active

Last code update: September 25, 2026License: MITChecked September 28, 2026

How to Install Perplexity MCP

$npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector perplexity-mcp

Requires Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, or another MCP-compatible client.

Setup by client

Claude Desktop (claude_desktop_config.json)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "perplexity-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "@modelcontextprotocol/inspector",
        "perplexity-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Cursor (~/.cursor/mcp.json)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "perplexity-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "@modelcontextprotocol/inspector",
        "perplexity-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

VS Code (.vscode/mcp.json)

{
  "servers": {
    "perplexity-mcp": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "@modelcontextprotocol/inspector",
        "perplexity-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Claude Code (terminal)

claude mcp add perplexity-mcp -- npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector perplexity-mcp

Add any API keys or environment variables the server's README lists.

About Perplexity MCP

The official Perplexity MCP server connects AI assistants to Perplexity's Sonar API, enabling real-time web search with cited sources and the sonar-deep-research model for comprehensive multi-step research tasks. It returns grounded, citation-backed answers rather than hallucinated responses, making it the go-to MCP for any agent that needs current information from the web.

Perplexity MCP is a Search MCP server designed for researchers, analysts, and engineers building grounded agents. It enables giving AI assistants live, source-grounded web access by wrapping a search provider and page-fetch step as MCP tools. Key capabilities include live web search with snippets and urls, optional full-page fetch for cited sources, configurable result counts and freshness windows, and structured tool calls that work cleanly inside an LLM context. It integrates with Google, Bing, Brave, Tavily, Exa, Perplexity, and SerpAPI, and is best suited for researchers, analysts, and engineers building grounded agents who need research and competitive analysis.

Key Features

search
web-search
research
real-time
citations

Pricing

Freemium: from Free tier available, paid from $0.001/1k tokens

Pros & Cons

Pros

Lets the assistant answer about events past its training cutoff
Cites sources you can actually click
Replaces most simple RAG pipelines

Cons

Quality depends on the underlying search provider
Token costs scale with how much page content you pull
Rate limits can bite on bursty agent runs

Best For

Research and competitive analysis
Source-grounded answers in chat UIs
Fact-checking long-form drafts
Replacing manual Googling in agent loops

Our Take on Perplexity MCP

Perplexity MCP is the best way to give any AI agent access to current, cited web information: essential for any agent that needs up-to-date knowledge.