Perplexity key

Bring your own Perplexity key to probe Perplexity's web-grounded answers for AI share of voice. Perplexity searches the live web before it answers, so its recommendations track what the internet currently says about your category; that makes it the most listening-adjacent surface BackTalk probes. Like any saved AI key, it can also serve as your filtering default, though the always-on web grounding makes it a better probe than scorer.

What it unlocks

• Perplexity joins your AI share-of-voice probes: your topics' prompts are asked on schedule and every answer is measured for who got recommended.
• Web-grounded answers with citations: the sources Perplexity used are captured with each sampled answer.
• Optionally, filtering (sentiment, categories, priority) if you assign it as the signal-filtering model under What runs each task, like any provider.

You can save a key per provider. Left untouched, your first key powers filtering (sentiment, relevance, priority) and every saved key's model joins the AI share-of-voice comparison. Point either job at any saved key and model, including several models from one provider, under What runs each task in Settings.

Get your API key

1. Open Perplexity → Settings → API and sign in.
2. Add a payment method if you haven't (the API is pay-as-you-go), then choose Generate key.
3. Copy the key. It starts with pplx-….

Add it in BackTalk

1. Go to Settings and find the Perplexity card under AI providers.
2. Pick a model (see below) and paste your pplx-… key.
3. Save. BackTalk sends one tiny test request to confirm the key and model, then stores the key encrypted.

Models & cost

Billed by Perplexity directly at their token rates, with no markup from BackTalk. List prices (USD per million input / output tokens):

• Sonar: ~$1 / $1. Fast web-grounded answers; the right default for share-of-voice probes.
• Sonar Pro: ~$3 / $15. Deeper grounding and richer citations for harder questions.

Note that Perplexity also meters web searches per request on top of tokens; the Usage & cost page tracks the token side, and Perplexity's console is authoritative for the total.

Troubleshooting

• "The provider rejected that API key." The key is wrong or was revoked. Generate a fresh one from the API settings page.
• Quota / rate-limit errors. Pay-as-you-go accounts have per-minute request limits; spread probes with a slower cadence or raise your limit with Perplexity.

Your key stays private. It's encrypted at rest and only decrypted server-side when a probe or scoring call runs. It is never returned to your browser and never logged. Settings shows only a masked hint.

Rotating your key: generate a new key in Perplexity's settings, paste it into Settings to replace the old one, then delete the previous key.