ERNIE 4.5 Pro vs Sonar Pro Turbo: which model should you choose?
We compared ERNIE 4.5 Pro and Sonar Pro Turbo on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. ERNIE 4.5 Pro has the stronger average benchmark score; Sonar Pro Turbo is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
ERNIE 4.5 Pro
ERNIE 4.5 Pro is a multimodal model from Baidu. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $13.89 per million input tokens and $65.19 per million output tokens, and averages 80.5 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $13.89 / 1M
- Output
- $65.19 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 80.5
- Open weights
- No
Sonar Pro Turbo
Sonar Pro Turbo is a multimodal model from Perplexity. It offers a 128,000-token context window, costs $13.55 per million input tokens and $57.97 per million output tokens, and averages 79.0 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $13.55 / 1M
- Output
- $57.97 / 1M
- Context
- 128,000
- Avg score
- 79.0
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | ERNIE 4.5 Pro | Sonar Pro Turbo | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $13.89 | $13.55 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $65.19 | $57.97 | B |
| Context window | 1,000,000 | 128,000 | A |
| Max output | 32,768 | 4,096 | A |
| Average score | 80.5 | 79.0 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1414.3 | 1434.8 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
ERNIE 4.5 Pro wins 10, Sonar Pro Turbo wins 2, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | ERNIE 4.5 Pro | Sonar Pro Turbo | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 80.3 | 81.6 | 1.3 | Sonar Pro Turbo |
| GPQA Diamond | 74.7 | 74.2 | 0.5 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| SWE-bench Verified | 66.5 | 66.3 | 0.2 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| HumanEval | 86.9 | 84.7 | 2.2 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| MATH-500 | 87.2 | 84.1 | 3.1 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| AIME 2025 | 76.3 | 73.9 | 2.4 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| LiveCodeBench | 76.4 | 73.7 | 2.7 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| IFEval | 86.0 | 84.9 | 1.1 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| TruthfulQA | 83.1 | 81.2 | 1.9 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| HellaSwag | 90.2 | 89.3 | 0.9 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| MMMU | 78.4 | 75.2 | 3.2 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| Arena Elo | 1414.3 | 1434.8 | 20.5 | Sonar Pro Turbo |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, ERNIE 4.5 Pro costs about $26.71 per million tokens and Sonar Pro Turbo costs about $24.66. Sonar Pro Turbo is roughly 8% cheaper than ERNIE 4.5 Pro. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
ERNIE 4.5 Pro has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens, compared with 128,000 for Sonar Pro Turbo. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, ERNIE 4.5 Pro wins 10, Sonar Pro Turbo wins 2, and 0 are tied. On the index average, ERNIE 4.5 Pro leads Sonar Pro Turbo by 1.5 points (80.5 versus 79.0).
The price picture favours Sonar Pro Turbo. The context picture favours ERNIE 4.5 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 ERNIE 4.5 Pro for quality-sensitive work and Sonar Pro Turbo for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose ERNIE 4.5 Pro if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- You need the larger 1,000,000-token context window.
- You need the larger 32,768-token output limit.
Choose Sonar Pro Turbo if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
FAQ
Is ERNIE 4.5 Pro better than Sonar Pro Turbo?
On the index average, ERNIE 4.5 Pro leads Sonar Pro Turbo by 1.5 points (80.5 versus 79.0). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. ERNIE 4.5 Pro wins 10 benchmarks, Sonar Pro Turbo wins 2.
Which is cheaper, ERNIE 4.5 Pro or Sonar Pro Turbo?
Sonar Pro Turbo is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $24.66 per million tokens, versus $26.71 for ERNIE 4.5 Pro.
Which has the larger context window?
ERNIE 4.5 Pro has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens. Sonar Pro Turbo has 128,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
ERNIE 4.5 Pro is proprietary; Sonar Pro Turbo is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with ERNIE 4.5 Pro for quality-sensitive work and Sonar Pro Turbo for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.