[3] The song was serviced to pop radio on 26 September 2017 as the third single from the album in the United States (fourth overall).

[4] The second version of the single, titled "Perfect Duet", with American singer Beyoncé, was released on 1 December 2017.

[5] Another duet with Italian singer Andrea Bocelli, titled "Perfect Symphony", was released on 15 December 2017.

[7] The song is a romantic ballad focusing on traditional marriage, written about his wife-to-be Cherry Seaborn, whom he knew from school and then reconnected with when she was working in New York.

[8][9] Sheeran revealed that the inspiration for the lyrics came after visiting James Blunt's house in Ibiza, where the two singers had listened to the rapper Future's music at six in the morning.

[12] Another version with slightly different lyrics featuring Camila Cabello and Nicholas Galitzine is included in the Cinderella (2021 soundtrack).

[15] After Sheeran's performance of "Perfect" on The X Factor on 26 November 2017, the song reached a new peak in the UK, advancing to number three and selling 32,507 units.

[18] It beat the likes of Wham!, Eminem ft. Ed Sheeran, Clean Bandit ft. Julia Michaels (Clean Bandit had reached the previous year's Christmas number one with "Rockabye"), The Pogues ft. Kirsty MacColl, Rita Ora and Mariah Carey to the Christmas number one spot and held the summit for six consecutive weeks before being displaced by Eminem's "River", which features Sheeran as a guest artist.

In the United States, ten songs from ÷ debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 2017, including "Perfect" at number thirty-seven.

[22] On 20 November 2017, "Perfect" pushed to a new Billboard Hot 100 high (8–7) and reached the Radio Songs top ten (17–10; 73 million, up 16 percent).

[23] Sheeran scored his seventh Radio Songs top ten and the third from his album ÷, following "Shape of You" and "Castle on the Hill".

[25] On 11 December 2017, after a full tracking week, the single topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart, becoming Sheeran's second number-one song in the United States and Beyoncé's sixth as a solo act.

After six total weeks at number one, the song was dethroned by "Havana" by Camila Cabello featuring Young Thug.

[29] The original version peaked at number one in Austria, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Netherlands, Philippines, Poland, Scotland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

After the Beyoncé duet release, "Perfect" also reached number one in Australia, Denmark, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Sweden and the United States.

The song is Sheeran's fourth to reach number one in Australia,[32] and held the country's top spot for eight consecutive weeks before "God's Plan" by Drake displaced it.

[40] Ross McNeilage, who writes for MTV UK, called the video a "Christmas dream" for its wintery visual.

[44] In November 2017, Sheeran released an acoustic version of "Perfect" and two remixes by Mike Perry and Robin Schulz.

[242] Nina Braca of Billboard wrote that the playing of the acoustic guitar helped the song to generate "a more intimate sound"; The writer affirmed that while Beyonce's "powerhouse" vocals "to help bring the song up a notch", when the two artist sing together they sound "harmonious".