Sonar
$1.00 per 1M input tokens and $1.00 per 1M output tokens · 127K context · vision.
Prices checked Oct 21, 2026 · tracked by LLM Cost Index since Oct 21, 2026
$1.00
input / 1M tokens
$1.00
output / 1M tokens
127K
context window
114K
max output
7.7
Artificial Analysis intelligence index
What Sonar costs per month
Estimated monthly bill for typical workloads. Try your own numbers in the cost calculator.
| Workload | Per month |
|---|---|
| Customer chatbot 1,000 conversations a day, 8 turns each | $444 |
| Document Q&A (RAG) 500 questions a day over retrieved documents | $97.50 |
| Coding / tool-using agent 200 tasks a day, long tool-heavy contexts | $384 |
| Content generation 30 long articles a day | $4.95 |
| Classification / extraction 100,000 short items a day | $945 |
Price history
We started tracking Sonar on Oct 21, 2026; the chart appears as soon as there is a second data point. See all recent price changes.
Cheaper alternatives to Sonar
Models with the same image input for at least 20% less (3:1 input/output mix), most capable first.
| Model | Input / 1M | Output / 1M | Context | Capabilities |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MiMo-V2.6-Pro Xiaomi | $0.435 | $0.87 | 1.05M | visionaudiotoolsreasoningJSONopen weights |
| Claude Haiku 5.5 Anthropic | $0.10 | $0.50 | 1M | visiontoolsreasoningJSON |
| GLM 5.3 Flash Z.ai | $0.041 | $0.12 | 1.05M | visiontoolsreasoningJSONopen weights |
| DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 DeepSeek | $0.30 | $1.20 | 1.05M | visiontoolsreasoningJSONopen weights |
| GPT-6 Luna OpenAI | $0.10 | $0.50 | 1.05M | visiontoolsreasoningJSON |
How to pay less for Sonar
For a customer chatbot (1,000 conversations a day, 8 turns each) that costs $444 a month at list price without caching:
| Option | Per month | You save |
|---|---|---|
| Move to MiMo-V2.6-Pro (similar capabilities) | $136 | $308 (69%) |
Other workloads: cut-your-bill tool for Sonar.
Specifications
| Model ID | perplexity/sonar |
| Input | text, image |
| Output | text |
| Tool calling | No |
| Structured output | No |
| Reasoning mode | No |
| Open weights | No |
| Released | Jan 27, 2025 |
| Web search | $0.0050 per request |
FAQ
- How much does Sonar cost?
- $1.00 per million input tokens and $1.00 per million output tokens. Prices as of Oct 21, 2026.
- What is the context window of Sonar?
- 127K tokens, with up to 114K output tokens per response.
- Does Sonar support images, tools and structured output?
- Images as input: yes. Tool calling: no. Structured (JSON) output: no. Reasoning mode: no.
- What are cheaper alternatives to Sonar?
- Models with the same key capabilities for at least 20% less include MiMo-V2.6-Pro ($0.435 / $0.87), Claude Haiku 5.5 ($0.10 / $0.50), GLM 5.3 Flash ($0.041 / $0.12).
More from Perplexity: all Perplexity models · how we collect prices