Perplexity Pro student discount: $10 a month, and every dated free offer has closed

Is Perplexity Pro free for students in 2026?

No. Perplexity's own pages stopped promising free Pro to students. Its Comet page for students is now titled "Get Comet with discounted Perplexity Pro", and the students page leads to the $10 plan. We put every free Perplexity Pro deal a student could have used since September 2024 on a timeline, at the day it closed. The orange point is the $10 plan, the one still open.

Two of the dated deals were student campaigns. In September 2024 Perplexity gave a free month to anyone who signed up with a .edu email by 15 September. A campus that reached 500 sign-ups won a free year for the whole school, per the Slickdeals post that linked Perplexity's back to school page. On 15 July 2025 SheerID announced a bigger one. Verified students in 190 countries could get "up to 2 years of free Perplexity Pro", earning a month for each classmate they referred, capped at 24 months. Perplexity's partner and referral help page now says the Student Referrals program "has been discontinued". A free year for verified US students, posted on Slickdeals on 20 October 2025, ran "while promo last" and is marked expired. Neither of those two printed an end date, so they aren't on the chart.

The four partner points gave 12 free months to customers of a payment app or a phone carrier. PayPal and Venmo users had to claim by 31 December 2025, Airtel customers in India by 16 January 2026 and Optus customers in Australia by 28 February 2026. HKT's promotion in Hong Kong ran to 18 April 2026, and its coupons had to be redeemed by 30 April. Perplexity's give a month, get a month referral, open to anyone, ended on 6 October 2025.

How much is Perplexity Pro for students?

Perplexity Pro costs a verified student $10 a month on the Education Pro plan, as of October 2026. Anyone else pays $17 a month billed yearly on Perplexity's pricing page, read on 11 October 2026, or $20 billed monthly, the rate our Perplexity pages recorded in September 2026. Over twelve months that's $120 for a student against about $200 for yearly Pro (the $17 is rounded) and $240 for monthly Pro.

The Education Pro help page lists everything in Pro: Perplexity Computer, Learn Mode, unlimited Pro Searches, file and image uploads and the premium models, plus tips and nudges written for study. The plan table on Perplexity's comparison page gives Education Pro the same weekly limit cell as Pro, so "unlimited" may not mean what it says. We dug into that gap on the Perplexity Pro limits page.

You may still see $4.99 a month on deal sites. Ignore it. Slickdeals' October 2025 listing said students could keep Pro at that rate after a free year. Perplexity's comparison page, which we read on 11 October 2026, lists Education Pro at "$10/mo with verification from SheerID", and we found no $4.99 price on any of its pages.

Education Pro is also the one exception to a rule Perplexity prints about its own pricing. Its help center says: "We do not offer special discounts based on any unique conditions related to geographical location, currency, or demographic status." Students aren't given a discount code. They get a separate plan.

Which Perplexity student and partner offers ended, and which are still open?

One Perplexity offer for students is open on 11 October 2026: Education Pro at $10. Three phone and carrier deals print no end date and need a purchase or a carrier plan, and one campus deal never printed a length. Every other route below had a deadline that has passed or is marked expired. We compiled the table from Perplexity's help center, its partners' own pages and the press they issued, checked on 11 October 2026.

Samsung's offer ran through the Galaxy Store from June 2025, per SamMobile. Motorola's three months came with phones launched in April 2025, per Business Today. Bell's promo pages now redirect to a support article that gives no end date and says the offer is "only valid for first-time Perplexity Pro customers". None of the three is a student offer. To get any of them, you'd have to buy the phone or the plan first.

How do you get Perplexity Education Pro?

You get Education Pro by passing a SheerID check inside Perplexity's upgrade screen. You don't need a code or a school email address. The steps below follow Perplexity's Education Pro help page as of October 2026:

1. Sign in to Perplexity on the web with any email. The help page says any address works, so a personal one is fine.
2. Click Upgrade in the bottom left corner, switch to the Education plan and click Verify as student.
3. Pass SheerID. A pending status means waiting for a manual review. A rejected one means you can't get Education Pro for now.
4. Pay $10 at checkout with a card. If checkout shows the full Pro price after you were approved, an older past-due subscription is the usual cause, and the help page says to contact support instead of paying it.

One trap catches iPhone users. If you signed in with Apple and chose to hide your email, your account lives under an Apple relay address. Verify and pay while you're signed in to that same account, or your Pro status won't show up on it.

Is Perplexity Pro free for students in India?

No, not since 16 January 2026. Students in India got free Pro the way every Airtel customer did. Airtel's 17 July 2025 deal gave 12 free months to all 360 million of its mobile, Wi-Fi and DTH customers, a subscription it valued at INR 17,000. Perplexity's Airtel help page now says "The promotional offer ended on January 16, 2026."

TechCrunch reported on 18 August 2026 that Perplexity logged 56 million downloads in India during the seven months the offer stayed open, per Sensor Tower data. The first Airtel years ran out in July 2026, and they renew at the paid price unless you cancel. One campus had its own deal: in January 2025 Perplexity gave free Pro to every student, faculty member and staff member of IIT Madras, per the institute's press release, which doesn't say how long it lasts.

Perplexity's CEO set a bigger goal in February 2025. Aravind Srinivas told a session with Paytm's founder, as reported by PTI: "Our goal is to make sure that no student has to pay for a pro version of Perplexity anywhere in the world." The students page we read in October 2026 still shows $10 a month.

Is Education Pro the cheapest way for a student to get AI answers with sources?

Education Pro is the cheapest paid plan built around cited search, but two free options beat it while they last. Perplexity's free tier gives 3 Pro Searches a day, which covers light coursework. US students can also claim 12 free months of Google AI Pro until 31 December 2026, or 4 free months of ChatGPT Plus until 31 October 2026. Our ChatGPT Plus student discount page has the terms for both. If you're choosing between the two $20 plans, Perplexity Pro vs ChatGPT Plus lays out what each one holds back.

Whizi, which publishes this page, has no student price, and for Perplexity alone it loses. Perplexity's Sonar Pro model sits on Whizi Pro at $29.99 a month, where it costs 20 credits a message, so 2,500 credits buy about 125 Sonar Pro answers. Starter costs $15.99, or $0.99 for the first week, and covers ChatGPT Luna, Claude Haiku and Whizi AI with web search on by default. It makes sense only for a student who wants Claude and GPT in one app after the free months run out.