The proportioning and detailing requirements of Reinforced Concrete Special Moment Resisting Frame (RC-SMRF) are intended to make the frames capable of resisting strong earthquake shaking without significant loss of stiffness or strength. But it has been observed in recent years that the current seismic design methods are not always able to provide the desired and satisfactory performance. It happens because of inelastic behaviour of frame elements during strong earthquakes. So Performance Based Seismic Analysis (PBSA) is proposed in this study to incorporate the inelastic behaviour. Out of 6 type of performance based method, performance based plastic design (PBPD) method is considered for the study which is suggested by Liao and Goel in 2012. A 6 storey RC-SMRF is considered for the study which is initially analyzed and designed by Force Based Design (FBD) method as per the IS 1893:2016 guidelines and later the same frame is analyzed by performance based plastic design (PBPD) method as per Liao and Goel (J Mar Sci Technol 20:304–310, 2012) guidelines. ETABS software is the tool used to create the mathematical model of the frame. To assess the seismic performance of the study frames, Non Linear Static Pushover Analysis (NLSPA) is performed on both the frames and a comparison is prepared in terms of displacements and drift ratios and it is found that at performance point performance based plastic design (PBPD) frame has 3.01 times higher strength than FBD frame from which it is found that PBSA method represents better seismic performance and strength in nonlinear region up-to predefined target drift for the current study frame.