FAQ
Questions about Perch, answered.
What Perch is, how it verifies its work, and how the Web, Desktop, and CLI surfaces differ. If your question is not here, the docs go deeper, and you can always talk to us.
Getting started
- What is Perch AI?
- Perch AI is a verifiable AI coworker for legal, finance, research, and coding. It reads the files you point it at, does the work, and attaches a source to every claim so you can check it. When a statement cannot be traced to a source, Perch marks it rather than presenting it as fact.
- Is Perch free?
- Starter is free with no credit card required. After sign-in you choose Starter or Pro. Starter includes 20,000 PT per calendar month, which is up to $20 worth of included hosted usage on the Starter Roost pool. Pro is $10/mo during Early Access, half the $20 list price, and includes every premium model plus up to $150/mo of included usage. The same account works across Perch AI Web, the desktop app, and the CLI.
- Do I need an account to use Perch?
- Yes. Create a free account at chat.perchai.app. On first sign-in you pick Starter or Pro. There is no invite code and no waitlist.
- How do I get started with Perch?
- The fastest path is Perch AI Web at chat.perchai.app, which runs in the browser. For local folder access and agentic work, install the desktop app from perchai.app/desktop, or install the CLI with the command npm install -g perchai-cli. Sign in once and you are working in about a minute.
Products and platforms
- What is the difference between Perch AI Web, Desktop, and the CLI?
- Perch AI Web is a browser chat for grounded, cited answers, document questions, and web search. Perch Terminal Desktop and the Perch CLI add local file access, shell commands, sandboxed code execution, browser delivery, and multi-step agentic work. All three surfaces share one account, the same memory, and the same citation engine.
- Which operating systems does the Perch desktop app support?
- The Perch desktop app runs on macOS and Windows. You can download it from perchai.app/desktop, sign in with your Perch account, choose a folder, and start your first verifiable task.
- What do I need to run the Perch CLI?
- The Perch CLI installs with the command npm install -g perchai-cli and requires Node 18 or newer. After installing, run perch login once to sign in, then run perch inside any folder to work from the files there.
- Can Perch work with apps like Gmail, Google Docs, and Calendar?
- Yes, on Perch Terminal Desktop and the CLI. Perch works inside the browser sessions you are already signed into, so it can create Google Docs, draft and send Gmail, and add calendar events, and it can work in tools such as Outlook, Word, OneDrive, Slack, and Notion. Every action leaves a receipt you can review.
How Perch works
- How does Perch verify citations?
- Every factual claim Perch produces points back to the material it actually read. Claims are checked against their sources, and any line that cannot be supported is flagged or removed before it reaches your final draft. You can open each reference and confirm it yourself.
- What are Saffron and Quill?
- Saffron and Quill are two voices for the same Perch. They share one workspace, one memory, and exactly the same tools, so either one will audit a folder, reconcile a ledger, draft a memo, or check citations. The only difference is how the replies read: Saffron is direct and dry and leads with the finding, Quill is warmer and more literate on the page. Switch whenever you want a different read.
- What is Flock?
- Flock is Perch's deepest mode for hard tasks. Perch plans a custom team of agents for the task, runs them together and in parallel where the work allows, and has checker agents review the output before it reaches you. Unsupported claims are revised and rechecked, and the verdict travels with the result.
- What is deep research?
- Deep research is a slash command on Perch Terminal Desktop and the CLI. You ask a question with /deepresearch, and Perch plans it into sub-questions, searches your indexed files and the web across several rounds, then returns a cited report with a claim ledger that marks what is backed by your files, what is web only, and what is unsupported. /research is the same command. Details are in the slash commands docs.
- What files and documents can Perch read?
- On the desktop app and the CLI, Perch reads the files inside the folder you choose, and that folder sets the boundary for what it can access. On Perch AI Web, you can upload documents such as PDFs, spreadsheets, and images, then ask questions across them.
Plans and pricing
- What is the difference between Starter and Pro?
- Starter is free hosted Perch on a curated nine-model pool with 20,000 PT per month. You can pin any model in that pool by name on Desktop and the CLI. Pro adds fair-use Roost routing, premium manual models, Flock, and financial suites for $10/mo during Early Access, half the $20 list price. Both plans can also run on your own API key, which is not metered against your included usage.
- Will the $10 Early Access price go up?
- Early Access pricing for Pro ($10/mo) is available for a limited time, and we'll give notice before it closes to new subscribers. If you subscribe during Early Access, that $10/mo rate continues on each renewal for as long as your subscription stays active, and we change the price you pay only with advance notice. After Early Access ends, new subscribers pay the $20/mo list price.
- How much can I use on Starter?
- Starter includes 20,000 PT per calendar month, which is up to $20 worth of included hosted usage on the Starter Roost pool. Usage resets each calendar month in UTC.
- Which models are included on each plan?
- Starter includes hosted models like Qwen 3.6, DeepSeek V4 Flash, GLM 5, Kimi K2.5, and Gemma 4 on the Starter pool. Pro adds premium models like GLM 5.2, DeepSeek V4 Pro, Kimi K2.7 Code, Kimi K2.6, MiniMax M3, Nemotron Ultra, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning, Grok 4.3, Qwen 3.7 Plus, and Inkling, plus manual pins across the full registry.
- How do I upgrade to Pro?
- Pick Pro on the plan chooser after sign-in, or open Settings → Billing in Perch AI Web and start checkout. Pro is billed through Stripe. You can manage or cancel your subscription from the same Billing panel.
Models
- What model does Perch use?
- Perch runs on Roost, its own model layer. Roost routes each task to a capable model automatically, so you choose a tier rather than a specific model and are never locked to one provider. On Starter, hosted inference is limited to the Starter pool. Pro unlocks premium models and manual pins. Under the hood Roost runs leading open models, including GLM 5.2, Kimi K2.6, MiniMax M3, DeepSeek V4 Pro, and Qwen 3.7 Plus, and the lineup keeps moving as stronger models ship.
- Which models are available on Perch?
- Roost draws on a rotating set of leading open models and picks the right one for each task, so the exact lineup changes as the field advances. Starter users stay on the nine-model Starter pool; Pro users get those plus ten premium models and manual pins. Recent Pro examples include GLM 5.2, Kimi K2.6, MiniMax M3, DeepSeek V4 Pro, Qwen 3.7 Plus, and Inkling. Kimi K2.7 Code, Nemotron Ultra, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning, and Grok 4.3 are also available as Pro manual pins.
- Can I use images with a text-only model?
- Yes. Some of the strongest models are text-only and cannot open an image at all, so Perch reads the image for them. Share a screenshot, a scanned invoice, or a photo with any model, and Perch describes what is in it and passes that to the model doing your work. Scanned PDFs are read the same way when they have no text layer. This works on every plan including the free Starter tier, there is nothing to turn on, and the reading step does not count against your included monthly usage.
- What are the Roost tiers and context windows?
- Roost offers Standard and Pro tiers, each with a Max variant. Standard and Pro use a 200K-token context window. The Max variants, Standard Max and Pro Max, extend context to 1M tokens for long documents and large codebases. Tier selection is available in the Perch Terminal composer.
Privacy and trust
- Does Perch train on my data, and who can see my files?
- No. Perch does not train any model on your content, and your prompts and files are not shared with the underlying model vendors. To generate a response, only the material needed for that request is sent to Perch's inference providers (Amazon Web Services / Amazon Bedrock, Weights & Biases Inference, and Fireworks), under contracts that prohibit training on your content and require encryption in transit and at rest. Perch does not sell your data or use it for advertising, and you can request deletion of your account and data at any time. Full detail is in the Privacy Policy.
- Why should I trust Perch's answers?
- Perch is built around verifiable output rather than confident guessing. On the web, each factual claim is tied to a cited source you can open. In the Terminal, figures are traced to tool results and marked as unsourced when they cannot be confirmed. The aim is work you can stand behind and check, not text you have to take on faith.
- How does Perch handle my files and data?
- On the desktop app and the CLI, Perch works within the folders you approve, and that folder boundary defines what it can read and change. For browser tasks, Perch acts through the sessions you are already signed into rather than asking you to hand over separate credentials. Every action it takes leaves a receipt you can review.