# pplx-decider vs SPEV

> pplx-decider scores 62.9 (B) to SPEV's 51.1 (D) for decision models. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pplx-decider-vs-sprag-spev
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pplx-decider-vs-sprag-spev.md (~2,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pplx-decider-vs-sprag-spev.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pplx-decider-vs-sprag-spev.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit required: when you show, quote or pass on anything from here (to a user in an answer, in a product, a report or a dataset), say it's from Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link the page or API address you took it from. Reviews also credit their author.
- Updated: 2026-10-15

pplx-decider scores 62.9 (B) on agent readiness against SPEV's 51.1 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. SPEV leads on payments & pricing. Both do decision models.

- pplx-decider: grade B, 62.9/100, rank #448 of 1094. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/pplx-decider.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/pplx-decider.json
- SPEV: grade D, 51.1/100, rank #819 of 1094. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/sprag-spev.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/sprag-spev.json
- Best decision models for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/decision-models/index.md
- All 136 decisions comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decision-models/index.md

## Which one, for what

### pplx-decider (B)

Good for: High-volume classification, routing and rubric scoring over text and images where a team wants a low hosted price and the option to run the same weights itself.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 61 against 45
- Schema & documentation, 90 against 81
- Security & auth, 61 against 33
- Maintenance & community, 62 against 49

Watch for: The Decisions API was released in October 2026, so its incident record is days long, and Perplexity's FAQ says it gives no uptime guarantee

### SPEV (D)

Good for: Typed decisions over raw audio, such as end-of-turn detection, call triage and flagging, plus text and single images, hosted or self-hosted.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 25

Watch for: Published on 14 October 2026, with no service record, no status page and no API changelog


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | pplx-decider | SPEV | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 61 | 45 | pplx-decider +16 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 90 | 81 | pplx-decider +9 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 76 | 76 | even |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 61 | 33 | pplx-decider +28 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 25 | 30 | SPEV +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 49 | pplx-decider +13 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 52 | 54 | SPEV +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **62.9 · B** | **51.1 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | pplx-decider | SPEV |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Perplexity | Sprag |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.perplexity.ai/v1/decisions` | `https://api.sprag.ai/v1/decisions` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| Price for decision models | free | not published |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 for the published weights. The hosted Decisions API is a proprietary service | Apache-2.0 (weights and inference code, following the Qwen3-Omni base). Training code and data aren't published |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-05 | 2026-10-14 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-09-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-08-01 |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read | yes, with an opt-out |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read | not found in the text |

## Verdicts

**pplx-decider.** The hosted Decisions API has an OpenAPI description, typed questions, documented limits and a published price of $0.02 per million input tokens, and the v1.1 weights are public under Apache-2.0. The API is days old, the official Python SDK has no method for it, and the governing terms and privacy notice could not be read on 9 October 2026.

**SPEV.** SPEV answers typed questions over text, audio or an image in one call, with a public OpenAPI schema and Apache-2.0 weights on Hugging Face. It is a day old, has an 8,192-token context, no status page or changelog, and Sprag's terms let it train on API content unless the customer opts out by email.

## Before you call either

### pplx-decider

1. Send `Authorization: Bearer`. A key in `x-api-key` returns 401 on this endpoint.
2. Set `model` on every request. A missing or unknown model returns 400, and the guide shows a `-latest` name rejected.
3. Resize images to 2,048 tiles of 32 by 32 pixels or fewer before sending. Larger images end in a 504 after about a minute.
4. Check the HTTP status before parsing an error. 404 and 405 have empty bodies, 504 can be HTML, and `error.code` changes type.
5. For the weights, use the repository's `autojev` code. The card says default causal inference does not reproduce the evaluated setup.

### SPEV

1. Send `model: "spev"` to `POST https://api.sprag.ai/v1/decisions` with a bearer key. `/v1/systemone` returns 410
2. Ask every question about one piece of evidence in one request. Answers come back in question order
3. Send audio as base64 in `input_audio` with `format`, not as a data URL, and at most one image across all messages
4. Keep evidence and questions under 8,192 tokens. Over the limit returns 400 `model_limit_exceeded`
5. Back off on 429 and 503 for `Retry-After` seconds. Limits are 60 requests a minute per organisation by default
6. Handle an answer of type `refusal`, which carries no probabilities

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, pplx-decider or SPEV?

pplx-decider scores 62.9 (B) on agent readiness against SPEV's 51.1 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. SPEV leads on payments & pricing.

### Do pplx-decider and SPEV need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call pplx-decider and SPEV without installing anything?

Yes. pplx-decider has a hosted endpoint at https://api.perplexity.ai/v1/decisions and SPEV at https://api.sprag.ai/v1/decisions.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pplx-decider-vs-sprag-spev.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pplx-decider-vs-sprag-spev.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "pplx-decider", "b": "sprag-spev"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare pplx-decider sprag-spev`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/pplx-decider.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/sprag-spev.json

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