Sonar
Summary
Sonar is a proprietary language model from Perplexity, released on 1 Jan 2024. It accepts text and generates text, with a 128K-token context window and up to 4K output tokens per response. As of 4 Oct 2026, the lowest listed API price is $1 per million input tokens and $1 per million output tokens (Perplexity API), across 3 providers we track.
Fast web-grounded Sonar for current answers, citations, and lightweight retrieval
Last verified 4 Oct 2026. Every figure on this page links to its source.
Specifications
| Developer | Perplexity |
|---|---|
| Release date | 1 Jan 2024 [models.dev] |
| Status | Generally available [models.dev] |
| Weights | Proprietary (API only) [models.dev] |
| Context window | 128K (128,000 tokens) [models.dev] |
| Max output | 4K tokens [models.dev] |
| Knowledge cutoff | 1 Sept 2025 [models.dev] |
| Input | Text [models.dev] |
| Output | Text [models.dev] |
| Reasoning mode | No [models.dev] |
| Tool calling | No [models.dev] |
Sonar API pricing by provider
USD per million tokens. Sorted by input price.
| Provider | Input | Output | Cached input | Context | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vercel AI Gateway perplexity/sonar | $0.25 | $2.50 | – | 127K | models.dev, 4 Oct 2026 |
| Perplexity API sonar | $1 | $1 | – | 128K | models.dev, 4 Oct 2026 |
| OpenRouter perplexity/sonar | $1 | $1 | – | 127K | OpenRouter, 4 Oct 2026 |
Frequently asked questions
What is the context window of Sonar?
Sonar has a context window of 128,000 tokens (128K) and can generate up to 4,096 tokens in a single response, according to models.dev.
How much does the Sonar API cost?
Through Perplexity API, Sonar costs $1 per million input tokens and $1 per million output tokens. Prices last verified 4 Oct 2026.
Is Sonar open source?
No. Sonar is a proprietary model; Perplexity has not released its weights. It is available through APIs including Vercel AI Gateway, Perplexity API, OpenRouter.
When was Sonar released?
Perplexity released Sonar on 1 Jan 2024, according to models.dev.
Which providers offer Sonar?
We track Sonar on 3 providers: Vercel AI Gateway, Perplexity API, OpenRouter.
Change history
No changes detected since we started tracking this model. We re-check every source daily.