Perplexity Teammates Explained: Setup, Credits and the $200 Question

From one-off tasks to standing jobs

Computer, the agent Perplexity launched in February, was built around discrete jobs. As Digital Trends describes it, its sandboxes disappeared when the work ended. Teammates persist. Perplexity says each one retains the project goal, task history and shared files across runs, watches connected tools, acts when something changes, can pull in other agents, and pings you when a decision is needed.

The company’s pitch covers marketing, sales, support, operations and finance, with examples such as bug triage, metric tracking and market research. In the demo Digital Trends recounts, an ads teammate spotted creator ads beating a customer acquisition target, prepared a larger campaign and sent a contract extension to legal. It is an appealing story, but it comes from the vendor. We have not seen independent testing, and Srinivas himself calls this a first step.

Setting up your first teammate

The help center labels this a research preview whose behavior may change. The current flow looks like this:

1. Sign in on the web and choose Teammates in the left navigation. Free and Pro users are asked to upgrade to Max first.
2. Name the teammate and follow the setup steps.
3. Connect tools by asking in chat, for example Connect Slack, then sign in and review permissions. If GitHub asks about repositories, grant only the ones needed. Gmail is among the supported plugins.
4. Describe the job: where work comes from, what to deliver and when to act. We would add when it should stop and ask you.
5. Check the model. New teammates default to Claude Opus 5.5, and the agents they start inherit it. Perplexity suggests a stronger model for planning and hard decisions and a cheaper one for routine work.
6. Optionally add it to a Slack channel so colleagues can assign work or ask for updates.

For a first job, pick something that sends nothing to the outside world and is quick to verify, like a weekly summary of competitor pricing pages. Leave anything that replies to customers or moves budget until you trust its judgment.

What 10,000 credits actually buy

Perplexity sets 100 credits at $1 and publishes sample ranges for Computer tasks. It has not published rates for teammates, so treat the table below as our own rough model. It assumes a 30-day month and uses figures checked on November 7, 2026.

Two caveats apply. Refreshing a dashboard is charged for the update rather than a full rebuild, so the dashboard row is closer to a ceiling. On the other hand, nobody outside Perplexity knows what continuous monitoring costs, and parallel agents, large files and frequent automations all raise consumption.

Taking the daily report as an example, the overage runs from 500 to 18,500 credits, or $5 to $185 on top of the subscription if you buy the extra credits. Data Studios reached the same $205 to $385 monthly range in its own estimate. The free period is the time to gather your real numbers, since each Computer task shows its credit total in its Usage menu.

Settings worth checking now

• Spending cap: Max accounts have a monthly cap on credit charges that defaults to $200 and goes up to $5,000. Raising it is the point where a background agent becomes a real budget line.
• Auto-refill: Off by default. When enabled on Max, it triggers at 2,500 credits. Agents spend without a fresh prompt from you, so leave it off until you know your usage.
• Credit order: A one-time bonus (35,000 credits on Max, expiring in about 30 days) goes first, then monthly credits, then purchased credits. Monthly credits do not roll over.
• Running out: Active tasks pause with work saved and resume when credits return. Credits come back for failures on Perplexity’s side, not for results you dislike.

Security: what isolation does and does not cover

Perplexity says each teammate runs on its own isolated computer, with browser sessions and cookies confined to that teammate. Saved credentials are encrypted and hidden from the agent. You can review finished work, take over the desktop or redirect a task midway.

That protects against some failures but not bad judgment. Plugins run with your permissions, so the access you grant sets the size of any mistake. Data Studios also points out that the help center does not explain how to pause or stop a teammate. Find that control yourself before connecting anything important.

Teammates, Dots and Duet

This summary draws on Free Press Journal’s November 5, 2026 comparison and reflects that date.

Digital Trends adds that OpenAI’s workspace agents and Microsoft’s Copilot Cowork target organizations rather than individual subscribers, which makes Perplexity’s solo-subscriber route unusual, if pricey.

Who should pay for this

• Worth trying: You already pay for Max, or you have a recurring, measurable job that eats several hours a week and is easy to check. Run it during the free period and read the credit totals.
• Probably not yet: You mainly want search and research answers. Ask searches do not use credits, and Pro costs $20 a month.
• Wait and ask: Your company is on an Enterprise plan. Those seats are not included by default, so check with your admin. Enterprise Max lists 15,000 monthly credits per seat at $325 a month.

Annual billing brings Max to $2,000 a year and is offered only in the web app. Given that the promotion has no end date and teammate rates are unpublished, we would hold off on committing to a year purely for this feature.