Which LLM is the cheapest for our workload?

The best-for pages rank the live catalogue per task by the index that measures it, and the router picks the cheapest model that meets your quality rule for each request.

How much can we save on our LLM bill?

On the public benchmark the router saved 89% against sending everything to the reference model. Import last month's provider bill on the bill page and the estimate is computed on your own traffic before you change a line of code.

How often do model prices change?

The catalogue is refreshed from the vendors' price lists; each model page shows the date of its data.

Model catalogue

Perplexity

Sonar

perplexity/sonarCatalogue: Indexed in the reference catalogue; nothing on this deployment answers as this model yet.

JSON

Specification

Published by the vendor; the platform bills at the target's declared price.

Sonar

Perplexity perplexity/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...

Input $/1M: $1.00
Output $/1M: $1.00
Context: 127K
Max output: 114K
Released: Jan 27, 2025
Modalities: textimage

Intelligence index8

Coding index-

Agentic index-

Alternatives, and where the router puts Sonar

Sonar earns a request when it needs image input; a short, general request would go to Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (free) instead - free per million input tokens against $1.00 here; and the hardest requests, where the quality floor rules it out, to Claude Opus 5.5 (batch). Your rules decide the floor; the trace shows the comparison for every request.

Cheaper alternatives

Lower input price and an intelligence index within 5 points.

Better alternatives

A higher intelligence index, best first, with the price it comes at.

Sonar head to head

On this deployment

Nothing on this deployment answers as this model yet. Connect your own provider under Model providers, or add a target to your catalogue - the router picks it up without retraining.

Not available here yet

Signed in, add the model under Model providers; self-hosting, add a target with metadata.model set to this id.

targets.yamlyaml

# targets.yaml - declare a target that runs Sonar
targets:
  - id: sonar
    kind: llm
    name: Sonar
    metadata:
      model: perplexity/sonar          # links the target to this catalogue entry
    capabilities:
      domains: [general]
      supports_tools: false
      context_window: 127072
    cost:
      usd_per_1k_tokens: 0.001000

Price among Perplexity models

Input list price per million tokens; Sonar is the cheapest of 5 listed.

1
Sonar
$1.00
2
Sonar Reasoning Pro
$2.00
3
Sonar Deep Research
$2.00
4
Sonar Pro Search
$3.00
5
Sonar Pro
$3.00

More from Perplexity

Other models by the same vendor in the catalogue.

List price is where the decision starts

Sonar earns a request when it beats the field on your objective, not on the vendor's page.

The specification above is what Perplexity publishes. What the router uses is the price you actually pay here, the latency measured on this deployment and the outcomes people reported - and it compares those against every other model that could take the request. Price a workload on the estimator, or send one live in the playground.

Photo: RDNE Stock project

For the business

What it means for which models you pay for.

Catalogue of every vendor
The right model, not the famous one
Price, context, abilities and benchmark indexes side by side, with the model that fits each task named.
The rankings
89% less
Lower cost per request
On the 150-prompt benchmark the router spent 89% less than sending every prompt to the reference model, and the judged quality went up, not down.
Read the benchmark
Per million tokens, every model
Prices you can compare
The catalogue prints input and output prices and what three typical monthly workloads cost on each.
The model catalogue

Which LLM is the cheapest for our workload?: The best-for pages rank the live catalogue per task by the index that measures it, and the router picks the cheapest model that meets your quality rule for each request.
How much can we save on our LLM bill?: On the public benchmark the router saved 89% against sending everything to the reference model. Import last month's provider bill on the bill page and the estimate is computed on your own traffic before you change a line of code.
How often do model prices change?: The catalogue is refreshed from the vendors' price lists; each model page shows the date of its data.

On this deployment

Nothing on this deployment answers as this model yet. Connect your own provider under Model providers, or add a target to your catalogue - the router picks it up without retraining.

Not available here yet

Signed in, add the model under Model providers; self-hosting, add a target with metadata.model set to this id.

targets.yamlyaml

# targets.yaml - declare a target that runs Sonar
targets:
  - id: sonar
    kind: llm
    name: Sonar
    metadata:
      model: perplexity/sonar          # links the target to this catalogue entry
    capabilities:
      domains: [general]
      supports_tools: false
      context_window: 127072
    cost:
      usd_per_1k_tokens: 0.001000

Sonar earns a request when it beats the field on your objective, not on the vendor's page.

Specification

Sonar

Alternatives, and where the router puts Sonar

Cheaper alternatives

Better alternatives

Sonar head to head

On this deployment

Price among Perplexity models

More from Perplexity

Sonar earns a request when it beats the field on your objective, not on the vendor's page.

What it means for which models you pay for.

The right model, not the famous one

Lower cost per request

Prices you can compare

Specification

Sonar

Alternatives, and where the router puts Sonar

Cheaper alternatives

Better alternatives

Sonar head to head

On this deployment

Price among Perplexity models

More from Perplexity

Sonar earns a request when it beats the field on your objective, not on the vendor's page.

What it means for which models you pay for.

The right model, not the famous one

Lower cost per request

Prices you can compare