Doubao 1.5 Pro Pro vs Sonar Pro Max: which model should you choose?
We compared Doubao 1.5 Pro Pro and Sonar Pro Max on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Sonar Pro Max has the stronger average benchmark score; Doubao 1.5 Pro Pro is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Doubao 1.5 Pro Pro
Doubao 1.5 Pro Pro is a multimodal model from ByteDance. It offers a 128,000-token context window, costs $14.10 per million input tokens and $54.74 per million output tokens, and averages 80.2 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $14.10 / 1M
- Output
- $54.74 / 1M
- Context
- 128,000
- Avg score
- 80.2
- 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 | Doubao 1.5 Pro Pro | Sonar Pro Max | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $14.10 | $14.01 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $54.74 | $69.33 | A |
| Context window | 128,000 | 128,000 | Tie |
| Max output | 8,192 | 4,096 | A |
| Average score | 80.2 | 81.1 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1443.4 | 1437.8 | A |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Doubao 1.5 Pro Pro wins 4, Sonar Pro Max wins 8, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Doubao 1.5 Pro Pro | Sonar Pro Max | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 80.2 | 83.7 | 3.5 | Sonar Pro Max |
| GPQA Diamond | 74.5 | 78.8 | 4.3 | Sonar Pro Max |
| SWE-bench Verified | 71.2 | 71.7 | 0.5 | Sonar Pro Max |
| HumanEval | 84.4 | 85.1 | 0.7 | Sonar Pro Max |
| MATH-500 | 85.4 | 86.2 | 0.8 | Sonar Pro Max |
| AIME 2025 | 77.7 | 74.9 | 2.8 | Doubao 1.5 Pro Pro |
| LiveCodeBench | 71.6 | 75.7 | 4.1 | Sonar Pro Max |
| IFEval | 87.8 | 88.3 | 0.5 | Sonar Pro Max |
| TruthfulQA | 84.6 | 82.0 | 2.6 | Doubao 1.5 Pro Pro |
| HellaSwag | 87.2 | 88.0 | 0.8 | Sonar Pro Max |
| MMMU | 78.1 | 77.2 | 0.9 | Doubao 1.5 Pro Pro |
| Arena Elo | 1443.4 | 1437.8 | 5.6 | Doubao 1.5 Pro Pro |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Doubao 1.5 Pro Pro costs about $24.26 per million tokens and Sonar Pro Max costs about $27.84. Doubao 1.5 Pro Pro is roughly 13% cheaper than Sonar Pro Max. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Both models list a 128,000-token context window. That is enough for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Doubao 1.5 Pro Pro wins 4, Sonar Pro Max wins 8, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Sonar Pro Max leads Doubao 1.5 Pro Pro by 0.9 points (81.1 versus 80.2).
The price picture favours Doubao 1.5 Pro Pro. The context picture is effectively a tie. 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 Max for quality-sensitive work and Doubao 1.5 Pro Pro for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose Doubao 1.5 Pro Pro if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 8,192-token output limit.
Choose Sonar Pro Max if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
FAQ
Is Doubao 1.5 Pro Pro better than Sonar Pro Max?
On the index average, Sonar Pro Max leads Doubao 1.5 Pro Pro by 0.9 points (81.1 versus 80.2). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Doubao 1.5 Pro Pro wins 4 benchmarks, Sonar Pro Max wins 8.
Which is cheaper, Doubao 1.5 Pro Pro or Sonar Pro Max?
Doubao 1.5 Pro Pro is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $24.26 per million tokens, versus $27.84 for Sonar Pro Max.
Which has the larger context window?
Both models list a 128,000-token context window.
Are these models open weights?
Doubao 1.5 Pro Pro is proprietary; Sonar Pro Max is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Sonar Pro Max for quality-sensitive work and Doubao 1.5 Pro Pro for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.