Getting Your API Keys
How to get a Perplexity API key
Create a Sonar API key in Perplexity's API portal — and what the Pro subscription's monthly credit does and doesn't cover.
What a Perplexity key powers in Landio
Perplexity's Sonar models write text — captions, hooks, post copy, inbox replies — like the other content vendors, with one difference: they answer from a live web search rather than from training data alone. For anything time-sensitive, that's the reason to pick them.
The same key also adds Perplexity as a source for niche research, next to the Google News and Reddit feeds we already read without any key. Only the links Perplexity actually retrieved are kept, so the research counts stay counts of real pages.
Perplexity does no image or video generation, so pair this key with another vendor for visuals.
Before you start
API access lives in Perplexity's API portal, which is separate from the perplexity.ai search app even though you sign in with the same account.
A Perplexity Pro subscription includes a small monthly API credit — useful for trying this out, not enough to run a content schedule on. Beyond that credit, API usage is prepaid separately, the same as with OpenAI and Anthropic.
Creating the key
Two minutes, assuming you already have a Perplexity account.
Sign in at perplexity.ai, open your account settings and find the API section — it's presented as the API portal rather than a settings tab.
Screenshot: The Perplexity API portal landing page
Add a payment method and buy an initial credit amount. Perplexity won't issue a usable key against a zero balance.
Screenshot: The Perplexity API billing page showing the credit purchase form
Choose Generate API Key, name it after where it will be used, and confirm.
Screenshot: The generate API key dialog with a name field
Copy the key — it begins with pplx-. Unlike most vendors here, Perplexity lets you view it again later from the same page.
Screenshot: The newly generated Perplexity API key shown with a copy button
Adding the key to Landio
Open AI Providers from the sidebar, find Perplexity in the vendor list, paste the key, and save. Perplexity (Sonar) then becomes a choice for content generation, and niche research starts including Perplexity as a source automatically.
Keys are encrypted at rest and write-only — after saving, the page only tells you that a key exists, never what it is. That also means there's no way to read a key back out of us later, so keep the copy you saved at the vendor.
Adding a key doesn't unlock a feature; it changes who bills you for it. Every plan already includes an AI allowance, so drafting works before you do any of this. With your own key, that usage bills from Perplexity at their rates instead of counting against the allowance.
You can add more than one key per vendor. Landio will either spread calls across them or treat the extras as failover spares, depending on how you configure that vendor — useful when one key is a paid account and the rest are backups.
Choosing a Sonar model
Sonar is the cheap, fast default and is the right pick for research and short copy. Sonar Pro searches harder and reasons over more sources, which shows up on briefs that need actual synthesis rather than a summary.
The reasoning models are slower and cost more per call. For a two-sentence caption they earn nothing; for a launch announcement drawing on several sources, they might.
If something goes wrong
A 401 on a fresh key usually means the balance is zero — Perplexity issues the key before it's funded, so the first failure often looks like an auth problem rather than a billing one.
Research returning nothing from Perplexity while the other sources answer normally is usually a rate limit. Every source here fails independently, so research still completes on whatever did respond.
Frequently asked questions
Does my Perplexity Pro subscription cover API usage?
Only up to the small monthly API credit it includes. Past that, API calls draw on a prepaid balance you buy separately in the API portal. The subscription is for the search app; the credit is a bonus, not an allowance.
Why would I use Perplexity over Claude or GPT for captions?
Because it searches the web as it answers. If your posts reference current events, prices, launches or anything that moved this week, that's a genuine advantage. For evergreen brand copy, it isn't — the other vendors write as well or better.
Does Perplexity make up the sources it cites?
It can, like any model. That's why we don't take the links from its written answer: we take them from the list of pages it actually retrieved, and use its prose only for the one-line summaries. Anything it invented is dropped before it reaches your research.
Is it safe to paste an API key into a third-party app?
Keys are encrypted before storage and never displayed again after you save them. That said, the honest general answer is: give any third party the narrowest key you can, and keep the ability to revoke it. Where a vendor supports scoped or restricted keys, use one limited to the models Landio actually calls, and rotate it from the vendor's console if you ever stop using us.
This walkthrough was last checked against the provider's live console on . Providers redesign their dashboards without notice — if what you see doesn't match, the button names have probably moved rather than the process changing.
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