Command A Reasoning vs Sonar Pro Reasoning: which model should you choose?
We compared Command A Reasoning and Sonar Pro Reasoning on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Sonar Pro Reasoning has the stronger average benchmark score; Command A Reasoning is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Command A Reasoning
Command A Reasoning is a multimodal model from Cohere. It offers a 400,000-token context window, costs $13.74 per million input tokens and $51.49 per million output tokens, and averages 80.2 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $13.74 / 1M
- Output
- $51.49 / 1M
- Context
- 400,000
- Avg score
- 80.2
- Open weights
- No
Sonar Pro Reasoning
Sonar Pro Reasoning is a multimodal model from Perplexity. It offers a 128,000-token context window, costs $13.94 per million input tokens and $72.76 per million output tokens, and averages 80.5 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $13.94 / 1M
- Output
- $72.76 / 1M
- Context
- 128,000
- Avg score
- 80.5
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Command A Reasoning | Sonar Pro Reasoning | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $13.74 | $13.94 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $51.49 | $72.76 | A |
| Context window | 400,000 | 128,000 | A |
| Max output | 65,536 | 32,768 | A |
| Average score | 80.2 | 80.5 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1435.9 | 1439.7 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Command A Reasoning wins 6, Sonar Pro Reasoning wins 6, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Command A Reasoning | Sonar Pro Reasoning | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 80.2 | 82.6 | 2.4 | Sonar Pro Reasoning |
| GPQA Diamond | 76.3 | 76.2 | 0.1 | Command A Reasoning |
| SWE-bench Verified | 71.1 | 71.7 | 0.6 | Sonar Pro Reasoning |
| HumanEval | 83.6 | 82.7 | 0.9 | Command A Reasoning |
| MATH-500 | 85.2 | 85.1 | 0.1 | Command A Reasoning |
| AIME 2025 | 74.2 | 73.7 | 0.5 | Command A Reasoning |
| LiveCodeBench | 74.1 | 75.6 | 1.5 | Sonar Pro Reasoning |
| IFEval | 87.8 | 87.1 | 0.7 | Command A Reasoning |
| TruthfulQA | 83.4 | 84.4 | 1.0 | Sonar Pro Reasoning |
| HellaSwag | 87.6 | 89.9 | 2.3 | Sonar Pro Reasoning |
| MMMU | 78.2 | 76.1 | 2.1 | Command A Reasoning |
| Arena Elo | 1435.9 | 1439.7 | 3.8 | Sonar Pro Reasoning |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Command A Reasoning costs about $23.18 per million tokens and Sonar Pro Reasoning costs about $28.65. Command A Reasoning is roughly 19% cheaper than Sonar Pro Reasoning. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Command A Reasoning has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens, compared with 128,000 for Sonar Pro Reasoning. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Command A Reasoning wins 6, Sonar Pro Reasoning wins 6, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Sonar Pro Reasoning leads Command A Reasoning by 0.3 points (80.5 versus 80.2).
The price picture favours Command A Reasoning. The context picture favours Command A Reasoning. 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 Sonar Pro Reasoning for quality-sensitive work and Command A Reasoning for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose Command A Reasoning if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 400,000-token context window.
- You need the larger 65,536-token output limit.
Choose Sonar Pro Reasoning if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
FAQ
Is Command A Reasoning better than Sonar Pro Reasoning?
On the index average, Sonar Pro Reasoning leads Command A Reasoning by 0.3 points (80.5 versus 80.2). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Command A Reasoning wins 6 benchmarks, Sonar Pro Reasoning wins 6.
Which is cheaper, Command A Reasoning or Sonar Pro Reasoning?
Command A Reasoning is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $23.18 per million tokens, versus $28.65 for Sonar Pro Reasoning.
Which has the larger context window?
Command A Reasoning has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens. Sonar Pro Reasoning has 128,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Command A Reasoning is proprietary; Sonar Pro Reasoning is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Sonar Pro Reasoning for quality-sensitive work and Command A Reasoning for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.