of 5— Open Perplexity and set Focus mode

What you'll accomplish

After working through this guide, you'll be using Perplexity to get current, cited market pricing for construction materials in minutes: a fast sanity check against RS Means data and a replacement for 30-minute vendor call sessions when you need a ballpark quickly.

What you'll need

{{tool:Perplexity.plan}} subscription (Free tier (limited Pro searches); Pro: $20/month or $200/year; Enterprise Pro: $40/user/month): Sign up (free tier available but limited queries)
A list of materials you want to price for the current bid
Time needed: 15 minutes first time; 5 minutes per query afterward
Cost: Free tier (limited Pro searches); Pro: $20/month or $200/year; Enterprise Pro: $40/user/month/month for Pro (recommended for volume users)

How-To Guide: Material Pricing Research with Perplexity

Step 1: Open Perplexity and set Focus mode

Go to {{tool:Perplexity.url}} and log in
In the search bar at the top, look for the Focus selector (usually shows "All" or a dropdown)
Set Focus to Web for construction pricing research. This searches current web sources rather than general knowledge

What you should see: A search interface similar to Google, but with a Focus/mode selector. The Pro version gives you access to more recent data sources.

Tools:Perplexity