Perplexity has quietly moved one of Comet's signature features — its ability to drive a Chromium-based browser autonomously on the user's behalf — behind a metered credits system, ending its free bundling inside Perplexity Pro. Existing Pro subscribers now get a one-time 4,000 Computer credits, while Max subscribers get a 35,000-credit sign-up bonus plus a recurring 10,000 credits every month, according to a change surfaced on September 15 that Perplexity has yet to officially document.
What actually changed
The affected mode is Comet's "Control browser" agent, which reads the page, clicks buttons and fills forms autonomously to complete tasks like booking flights, comparing prices or triaging inbox items. Until now the feature was bundled with any paid Perplexity plan; from now on it runs on a Computer credits meter that early testers report draining within a few multi-step tasks. The core Perplexity answer engine and normal Comet browsing remain untouched.
Squeezing Pro and Max tiers differently
The tier gap is unusually stark. Pro subscribers on the $20-a-month plan get a single 4,000-credit grant with no monthly refill, effectively a trial pass. Max subscribers, who pay $200 a month for higher usage caps, get 35,000 up front and 10,000 more each month — enough for regular but still bounded agent use. Anyone who wants more will have to top up separately once the tier's grant runs dry.
Compute economics catching up to agents
The move fits a broader pattern of agentic AI vendors realizing that inference-heavy tools do not fit inside flat subscription tiers. Perplexity's shift arrives days after OpenAI opened its Agents API in public beta and as xAI shipped Grok 4.6 with more aggressive agentic pricing. Comet had been positioned as the killer app that would push customers off Perplexity Pro; a credits meter turns that value proposition into a metered utility instead.
Trust cost, not just dollar cost
The bigger issue for Perplexity is that Comet's core pitch — an autonomous browser tab you can hand tasks to — breaks down if power users have to babysit a running credit balance. Rolling out the meter without official documentation, on top of a feature Pro subscribers thought they had already paid for, drops the change into the same complaints cycle enterprise buyers voiced when Salesforce redrew its Agentforce pricing. Expect competitive knives out.
Reporting based on coverage from PiunikaWeb and Perplexity user reports.