Perplexity Users Claim Their Usage Limit Was Significantly Reduced, Company Reportedly Responds

Several Perplexity users woke up last week to find their accounts' usage significantly reduced. Sharing their frustrations online, these users highlighted that the rate limits were cut short to the point that their daily usage was getting exhausted in just a few queries. The list of impacted users includes those on the free tier and those paying for a subscription. After spending multiple days in confusion, the artificial intelligence (AI) company has reportedly issued a statement, shedding light on the reason behind the throttling exercise.

Perplexity Users Claim Usage Reduction

In several Reddit posts on r/perplexity_ai, individuals posted about their rate limit reduction. One user complained, “I mainly use GPT and Gemini inside Perplexity, but I honestly use very few queries per week. There's basically no way I actually exceeded even the 100-query limit.” Another user claimed, “Perplexity is getting crazier. It has reached its limits after a few chats. I wonder how many limits they apply now.”

These are not isolated incidents, and the subreddit is filled with similar posts. It appears to be impacting users across the globe on all the different tiers, including the free tier and paid subscriptions. Based on the conversations, affected users are witnessing anywhere between a 20 to 80 percent reduction in the rate limit, causing confusion and frustration among them.

A Perplexity spokesperson told Android Authority, “Some users are seeing different usage limits because their accounts are tied to promotional-code offers, and we've had to adjust enforcement due to fraud and unauthorised resale of those codes, including cases where people may have unknowingly purchased invalid codes from third parties. We're working to make the applicable limits clearer for affected users and will continue helping anyone who believes they were impacted in error, while continuing to enforce our terms against abuse.”

As per the statement, it appears that Perplexity is deliberately reducing usage limits for certain accounts that received Pro membership via promotional codes due to suspicions of unauthorised resale. Likely, some of the affected accounts were mistakenly throttled. At least one of the users posted later to claim that their usage limits returned to normal.

Another user, who posted about getting a significantly reduced rate, was accidentally routing the searches via Computer and getting hit with a “low credits” message. Notably, Perplexity is yet to share more details on the number of accounts impacted and how mistakenly impacted users can seek redressal.