Stacks/ research-max-stack
Research Max Stack
Heavy research and multimodal reading — scientific search, synthesis, grounded Q&A and long-context analysis.
observed by @whysanesandersVerified 2026-08-19
$319/mo
$30/mo
difficulty: intermediate
# Research Max Stack $319/mo studio · $30/mo shoestring · difficulty: intermediate Shoestring tradeoff: Perplexity Pro (not Max) plus Consensus Premium and free NotebookLM / AI Studio / ChatGPT. No Elicit extraction tables, no uncapped Perplexity. A literature sketch works; a systematic review will stall on caps. | Tool | Pricing | | --- | --- | | [Google AI Studio / Gemini API](https://aistudio.google.com) | free tier (text models); paid from $0.75/1M input (Gemini 3.7 Flash promo till 2027-01) | | [Perplexity](https://www.perplexity.ai) | free tier; Pro $20/mo, Max $200/mo | | [Consensus](https://consensus.app) | free tier; Pro $20/mo ($144/yr), Deep $65/mo ($540/yr) | | [Elicit](https://elicit.com) | free tier; Plus $11/mo, Pro $39/mo (billed yearly) | | [NotebookLM](https://notebook.google/) | free; Plus via Google AI Plus $4.99/mo; Pro via Google AI Pro $19.99/mo | | [ChatGPT](https://chatgpt.com) | free tier; Go $8/mo, Plus $20/mo, Pro from $100/mo | via https://noemium.com/stacks/research-max-stack/
Shoestring tradeoff. Perplexity Pro (not Max) plus Consensus Premium and free NotebookLM / AI Studio / ChatGPT. No Elicit extraction tables, no uncapped Perplexity. A literature sketch works; a systematic review will stall on caps.
The components — what each one costs
Google AI Studio / Gemini APIfree tier (text models); paid from $0.75/1M input (Gemini 3.7 Flash promo till 2027-01)
Perplexityfree tier; Pro $20/mo, Max $200/mo
Consensusfree tier; Pro $20/mo ($144/yr), Deep $65/mo ($540/yr)
Elicitfree tier; Plus $11/mo, Pro $39/mo (billed yearly)
NotebookLMfree; Plus via Google AI Plus $4.99/mo; Pro via Google AI Pro $19.99/mo
ChatGPTfree tier; Go $8/mo, Plus $20/mo, Pro from $100/mo- Total$319/mo
The recipe
- Dump papers and sources into NotebookLM. It builds a grounded notebook over your uploads and answers from those sources, not the open web. The audio overview is useful for long review sessions.
- Scientific claims first in Consensus. Ask “what does the evidence say about X?” and get a consensus meter plus study-quality flags. It keeps you from over-reading a single paper.
- Structured extraction in Elicit (Pro $39/mo). Pull methods, results and sample sizes into tables across dozens of papers. The free tier is enough to test; real literature reviews need Pro.
- Deep search and source surf in Perplexity (Max $200/mo). Cited web search for background context, market data and fast fact-checks. Max is the tier that removes the hard caps on research-scale querying.
- Long-context analysis in Google AI Studio (~$50/mo pay-as-you-go). Paste whole PDFs, datasets or multi-modal sources into Gemini’s million-token context. Heavy research volume adds up even at Flash promo rates; the free tier is only enough to test the workflow.
- ChatGPT Plus ($20/mo) as the second brain. General synthesis, rewriting and explaining across sources. Route the deep scientific search to Consensus and Elicit so ChatGPT handles interpretation, not fact retrieval.
- Keep a reading queue, not a search spiral. The danger with this stack is researching forever. Define the question before you open any tool.
What you pay
- Google AI Studio — pay-as-you-go, ~$50/mo. Gemini Flash handles huge documents and multimodal inputs at promo rates; sustained research volume pushes a real monthly bill past the free quota.
- Perplexity — Max, $200/mo. The only tier that keeps up with heavy research queries without daily throttling; Pro is fine for casual search.
- Consensus — Premium, $10/mo. Unlocks full study access and advanced filters; the free tier is enough to verify whether the tool fits your field.
- Elicit — Pro, $39/mo. The paid tier that exports structured extractions at literature-review scale; Plus is too tight for dozens of papers.
- NotebookLM — free tier, $0/mo. Grounded Q&A and audio overviews are fully free for research notebooks; upgrade only if you hit source limits.
- ChatGPT — Plus, $20/mo. General synthesis and rewriting without the Pro price tag; the scientific heavy lifting lives in Consensus and Elicit.
When this breaks down
This stack is overkill for a single paper or a quick answer. It earns its price when you are doing systematic reviews, thesis chapters or multi-source reports. It also still hallucinates at the synthesis layer — never trust a generated claim without chasing the citation back to the original source.