of 5— Create your Perplexity account

What you'll accomplish

By the end of this guide, you'll use Perplexity's real-time web search to build a competitive landscape summary in 30–45 minutes instead of 2–4 hours of manual browser research. You'll have a repeatable process for pulling positioning, pricing, product news, and key differentiators for any set of competitors — with source citations built in.

What you'll need

A Perplexity account — free tier works; {{tool:Perplexity.plan}} at Free tier (limited Pro searches); Pro: $20/month or $200/year; Enterprise Pro: $40/user/month gives more searches per day and deeper search capability
A list of 3–5 competitors you need to profile
Knowledge of the client's market position (to frame "compared to" language)
Time needed: 30–60 minutes per competitive set
Cost: Free or Free tier (limited Pro searches); Pro: $20/month or $200/year; Enterprise Pro: $40/user/month

How-To Guide: Competitive Intelligence Research with Perplexity

Step 1: Create your Perplexity account

Go to {{tool:Perplexity.url}} and click Sign Up
Sign in with Google or email — takes 2 minutes
On the home page you'll see a search bar that looks like a chat interface

What you should see: A search bar with "Ask anything" placeholder text and a mode selector (Quick vs. Pro search).

Tools:Perplexity