The Perplexity alternative
vsPerplexity
typesearch vs Perplexity
Perplexity’s Search API, 3.5× cheaper, through the Perplexity SDK you already use — plus a calibrated score, verification and structure on every result.
Same job, 3.5× cheaper
Search
$1.40
Perplexity: $5−72%
Contents · per 1k pages
$0.20
Perplexity: $0.50−60%
What stays the same
Your SDK, your parameters, your response parsing. Here is how each Perplexity parameter maps.
| Perplexity parameter | Status | On typesearch |
|---|---|---|
| query (one, or up to 5) | Same | Same. Several queries are judged together; results come in one list. |
| max_results | Same | Same, 1–20. |
| search_domain_filter | Same | Same: include, or exclude with a “-” prefix. Paths work too. |
| search_recency_filter | Same | hour, day, week, month, year. |
| search_after_date_filter, search_before_date_filter | Same | Same format (MM/DD/YYYY). |
| country, search_language_filter | Limited | Applied within our current coverage; otherwise ignored. |
| max_tokens, max_tokens_per_page | Limited | Ignored: excerpts are always short. |
| search_type: "people" | Not supported | Returns an error: we index news and the web, not people. |
| Sonar (chat completions) | Not supported | We don’t write answers. Use essentials for the key facts. |
What you gain
- A calibrated relevance probability on every result
- Top results read and verified before they’re ranked
- Typed questions answered per result, in the same call
- Tone, same-story dedupe and who-published-first
- Similar and contents endpoints with the same key
- Hard cost caps per request
When Perplexity is still the better fit
We’d rather you stay than churn in a month. Keep Perplexity for these:
- You need results from every country and language today.
- You want the API itself to write cited answers (Sonar).
- You need people or finance search.
Migration
The whole migration
One compatibility layer per provider: same parameters, same response shape, same errors. Point your official SDK at us and ship.
from perplexity import Perplexity-client = Perplexity()+client = Perplexity(api_key=TYPESEARCH_API_KEY,+ base_url="https://api.typesearch.ai/compat/perplexity")r = client.search.create(query=["Argentina inflation outlook", "IMF program review"],max_results=10,search_recency_filter="week",)
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