Perplexity: Sonar

Perplexity: Sonar is a large language model from Perplexity. It costs $1.00 per million input tokens and $1.00 per million output tokens. Its context window is 127K tokens.

image input

Input / 1M tokens: $1.00
Output / 1M tokens: $1.00
Cached input / 1M: -
Context window: 127K

This model also charges $0.005 per search request

That is $5.00 per 1,000 requests, billed on top of the token prices above. On a typical 1,000-in / 500-out exchange the tokens cost $0.0015, so the search fee is 3.3× the token cost. Per-token rankings elsewhere ignore this entirely.

Who serves it cheapest

1 hosts serve Sonar. Same weights, same API - the price difference is pure margin and routing.

Providers serving Perplexity: Sonar, cheapest first
Provider	Input / 1M	Output / 1M	Context	Throughput	Uptime 24h
PerplexityCheapest	$1.00	$1.00	127K	-	100.0%

About Sonar

Sonar is lightweight, affordable, fast, and simple to use - now featuring citations and the ability to customize sources. It is designed for companies seeking to integrate lightweight question-and-answer features...

Specifications

Perplexity: Sonar specifications
Model ID	`perplexity/sonar`
Provider	Perplexity
Context window	127K tokens
Max output	114K tokens
Input modalities	text, image
Output modalities	text
Knowledge cutoff	-
Open weights	No
Released	January 27, 2025

Cheaper alternatives

Models that cost less than Sonar while keeping at least half its context window and every input modality it supports.

Kimi K2.5

$0.450 in · $2.25 out

1.1× cheaper

GLM 4.5V

$0.600 in · $1.80 out

1.1× cheaper

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite

$0.300 in · $2.50 out

1.2× cheaper

Nova 2 Lite

$0.300 in · $2.50 out

1.2× cheaper

Gemini 2.5 Flash

$0.300 in · $2.50 out

1.2× cheaper

Frequently asked

How much does Perplexity: Sonar cost?

$1.00 per million input tokens and $1.00 per million output tokens.

What is the context window of Perplexity: Sonar?

127K tokens, with up to 114K tokens of output per request.

Does Perplexity: Sonar have extra fees beyond per-token pricing?

Yes. Perplexity: Sonar charges $0.005 per search request - $5.00 per 1,000 requests - on top of $1.00 per million input tokens and $1.00 per million output tokens. On a typical 1,000-input / 500-output exchange the search fee alone is 3.3× the token cost.

Confirm against the source: Perplexity official pricing.