If you’ve spent any time lately using Perplexity’s “Computer” feature—that digital assistant that handles multi-step workflows like researching competitive markets or drafting complex reports—you’ve likely had that moment of existential dread. You know the one: you set an agent loose to automate a massive project, and somewhere in the back of your mind, you’re wondering, “Exactly how many credits is this thing burning through right now?”

For power users, that question has been the primary source of friction. You want the heavy lifting done, but you also want to keep the lights on without accidentally depleting your balance on a particularly enthusiastic research loop.

Perplexity finally heard those concerns. As of this week, they’ve rolled out a new “Computer Analytics” feature directly in Account Settings. It’s a clean, functional addition that brings a level of transparency to the platform that honestly feels long overdue.

The update is exactly what it sounds like: a centralized dashboard where both consumer and enterprise users can track their credit spend across different models. Instead of staring at a vague balance and guessing where it went, you can now drill down into the data to see which tasks, workflows, or models are consuming the most resources.

For the uninitiated, Perplexity Computer isn’t just a basic search tool. It’s an orchestration engine that can spin up specialized sub-agents to handle complex, asynchronous tasks. Because it’s constantly balancing different frontier models—deciding whether a task needs the heavy-duty reasoning of one model or the speed of another—the “cost” of a project can vary wildly. Seeing the breakdown of that spend in a visual format makes it a lot easier to understand why a 30-minute deep dive into industry financials cost what it did.

It’s also a big win for enterprise teams. When you’re managing credit allocations across a team, “it just costs what it costs” isn’t a sustainable financial strategy. This analytics layer adds that necessary layer of accountability, helping managers understand how their teams are utilizing these AI agents and where they might need to adjust their workflows to be more efficient.

Is it going to save you from every bad prompt or infinite loop? Probably not. But having the ability to watch your credit usage in real-time is a massive psychological and practical upgrade. It transforms the experience from a “set it and forget it” gamble into something a bit more measurable. Now, when you see a particularly heavy research task eating up your balance, you’ll at least know exactly why, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll be a little more strategic with how you prompt the next one.