By Yadullah Abidi, Published Feb 21, 2026, 7:00 AM EST

Yadullah Abidi is a Computer Science graduate from the University of Delhi and holds a postgraduate degree in Journalism from the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. With over a decade of experience in Windows and Linux systems, programming, PC hardware, cybersecurity, malware analysis, and gaming, he combines deep technical knowledge with strong editorial instincts.

Yadullah currently writes for MakeUseOf as a Staff Writer, covering cybersecurity, gaming, and consumer tech. He formerly worked as Associate Editor at Candid.Technology and as News Editor at The Mac Observer, where he reported on everything from raging cyberattacks to the latest in Apple tech.

In addition to his journalism work, Yadullah is a full-stack developer with experience in JavaScript/TypeScript, Next.js, the MERN stack, Python, C/C++, and AI/ML. Whether he’s analyzing malware, reviewing hardware, or building tools on GitHub, he brings a hands-on, developer’s perspective to tech journalism.

If you paid $200 upfront for a year of Perplexity Pro, the product you’re getting today looks nothing like the one you signed up for. Perplexity was giving you wrong answers already; now, it won’t be giving that many answers in the first place.

Between November 2025 and February 2026, Perplexity quietly gutted the usage limits on its Pro plan, swapped the models running under the hood, and redesigned the interface—all without sending so much as an email to the people who already paid.

What Pro subscribers were originally promised: Unlimited curiosity, within reason

When Perplexity Pro was marketed to annual subscribers, the pitch was clear and generous. The Pro plan page advertised extended access to Perplexity Research and promoted features like unlimited file uploads, access to all the latest AI models, and 10 times more citations in answers. For all intents and purposes, Perplexity was the chatbot that made me wonder why I ever used ChatGPT.

In practice, Pro users, including myself, enjoyed upwards of 500 to 600 Deep Research queries per day, 50 Labs queries per month, and unlimited file uploads. That is the product people evaluated and committed to $200 for a full year.

The annual billing option made sense precisely because the terms were attractive. Pay upfront, save a bit on the monthly rate, and get uninterrupted access to one of the best AI research tools on the market. My own commitment to Perplexity’s Pro plan was specifically because the research capabilities, for all practical purposes, were unlimited. For a time, a Perplexity Pro subscription was absolutely worth the money.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: If you bought an annual Perplexity subscription, you were lied to