Command A Pro vs Sonar Pro Max: which model should you choose?
We compared Command A Pro and Sonar Pro Max on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Command A Pro has the stronger average benchmark score; Command A Pro is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Command A Pro
Command A Pro is a multimodal model from Cohere. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $14.28 per million input tokens and $68.05 per million output tokens, and averages 81.3 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $14.28 / 1M
- Output
- $68.05 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 81.3
- Open weights
- No
Sonar Pro Max
Sonar Pro Max is a multimodal model from Perplexity. It offers a 128,000-token context window, costs $14.01 per million input tokens and $69.33 per million output tokens, and averages 81.1 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $14.01 / 1M
- Output
- $69.33 / 1M
- Context
- 128,000
- Avg score
- 81.1
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Command A Pro | Sonar Pro Max | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $14.28 | $14.01 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $68.05 | $69.33 | A |
| Context window | 200,000 | 128,000 | A |
| Max output | 16,384 | 4,096 | A |
| Average score | 81.3 | 81.1 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1434.6 | 1437.8 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Command A Pro wins 6, Sonar Pro Max wins 5, and 1 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Command A Pro | Sonar Pro Max | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 81.3 | 83.7 | 2.4 | Sonar Pro Max |
| GPQA Diamond | 79.1 | 78.8 | 0.3 | Command A Pro |
| SWE-bench Verified | 71.2 | 71.7 | 0.5 | Sonar Pro Max |
| HumanEval | 87.5 | 85.1 | 2.4 | Command A Pro |
| MATH-500 | 83.1 | 86.2 | 3.1 | Sonar Pro Max |
| AIME 2025 | 78.2 | 74.9 | 3.3 | Command A Pro |
| LiveCodeBench | 74.0 | 75.7 | 1.7 | Sonar Pro Max |
| IFEval | 89.0 | 88.3 | 0.7 | Command A Pro |
| TruthfulQA | 83.3 | 82.0 | 1.3 | Command A Pro |
| HellaSwag | 90.1 | 88.0 | 2.1 | Command A Pro |
| MMMU | 77.2 | 77.2 | 0.0 | Tie |
| Arena Elo | 1434.6 | 1437.8 | 3.2 | Sonar Pro Max |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Command A Pro costs about $27.72 per million tokens and Sonar Pro Max costs about $27.84. Command A Pro is roughly 0% cheaper than Sonar Pro Max. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Command A Pro has the larger context window at 200,000 tokens, compared with 128,000 for Sonar Pro Max. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Command A Pro wins 6, Sonar Pro Max wins 5, and 1 are tied. On the index average, Command A Pro leads Sonar Pro Max by 0.2 points (81.3 versus 81.1).
The price picture favours Command A Pro. The context picture favours Command A Pro. Those two dimensions often matter more than a few benchmark points once a model is good enough for the task.
If you need a single default, start with Command A Pro for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.
Choose Command A Pro if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 200,000-token context window.
- You need the larger 16,384-token output limit.
Choose Sonar Pro Max if
- You prefer Perplexity's tooling or already use it.
FAQ
Is Command A Pro better than Sonar Pro Max?
On the index average, Command A Pro leads Sonar Pro Max by 0.2 points (81.3 versus 81.1). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Command A Pro wins 6 benchmarks, Sonar Pro Max wins 5.
Which is cheaper, Command A Pro or Sonar Pro Max?
Command A Pro is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $27.72 per million tokens, versus $27.84 for Sonar Pro Max.
Which has the larger context window?
Command A Pro has the larger context window at 200,000 tokens. Sonar Pro Max has 128,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Command A Pro is proprietary; Sonar Pro Max is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Command A Pro for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.