Many wonder whether the as in as per is superfluous. Wouldn’t the phrase “per your instructions” mean much the same thing as “as per your instructions?” In that case, would it be incorrect to insert the extra word?
The fact is that both per and as per have existed in English in the sense “according to” for a very long time–since the 15th and 16th centuries, respectively. The choice of which to use (or avoid) is entirely a matter of taste. The more ponderous as per is often found in business and legal prose, or in writing that attempts to adopt a formal tone. It is not incorrect to use, but some find it overly legalistic and counsel avoiding it for that reason. On the other hand, it has been used to good effect in facetious mock-business-English (“as per the President’s shiny new Environmental Policy Act”). As in so many matters of diction, the tonal needs of a particular passage should guide your choice.
Examples of as per in a Sentence
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Rumors about the lineup had been flying around for weeks, as per usual in the fall, with multiple reports naming the eventual headliners while the festival stayed mum on the official report.—
Vanessa Franko,
Los Angeles Times,
11 Nov. 2026 By allowing advanced sonar capabilities to be deployed further forward and for extended periods of time, LDS significantly enhances operational persistence while reducing risks to personnel and high-value assets, as per the release.—
Prabhat Ranjan Mishra,
Interesting Engineering,
8 Nov. 2026 Companies undergo them both when scaling as an organization and improving their system as per external and internal factors.—
Stefan Gogoll,
Forbes.com,
6 Nov. 2026 Texas is one of the epicenters of the American data center industry, having more operational data centers than any other state bar Virginia, as per a Pew Research Center study published in April.—
James Bickerton,
MSNBC Newsweek,
6 Nov. 2026 See All Example Sentences for as per