ERNIE 4.5 Turbo vs Sonar Pro Pro: which model should you choose?
We compared ERNIE 4.5 Turbo and Sonar Pro Pro on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. ERNIE 4.5 Turbo and Sonar Pro Pro are effectively tied on the index average; ERNIE 4.5 Turbo is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
ERNIE 4.5 Turbo
ERNIE 4.5 Turbo is a multimodal model from Baidu. It offers a 128,000-token context window, costs $13.75 per million input tokens and $54.36 per million output tokens, and averages 79.7 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $13.75 / 1M
- Output
- $54.36 / 1M
- Context
- 128,000
- Avg score
- 79.7
- Open weights
- No
Sonar Pro Pro
Sonar Pro Pro is a multimodal model from Perplexity. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $13.59 per million input tokens and $73.47 per million output tokens, and averages 79.7 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $13.59 / 1M
- Output
- $73.47 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 79.7
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | ERNIE 4.5 Turbo | Sonar Pro Pro | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $13.75 | $13.59 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $54.36 | $73.47 | A |
| Context window | 128,000 | 200,000 | B |
| Max output | 32,768 | 65,536 | B |
| Average score | 79.7 | 79.7 | Tie |
| Arena Elo | 1419.8 | 1434.0 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
ERNIE 4.5 Turbo wins 6, Sonar Pro Pro wins 6, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | ERNIE 4.5 Turbo | Sonar Pro Pro | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 84.0 | 79.4 | 4.6 | ERNIE 4.5 Turbo |
| GPQA Diamond | 73.0 | 72.6 | 0.4 | ERNIE 4.5 Turbo |
| SWE-bench Verified | 67.5 | 69.7 | 2.2 | Sonar Pro Pro |
| HumanEval | 86.4 | 83.0 | 3.4 | ERNIE 4.5 Turbo |
| MATH-500 | 86.4 | 81.9 | 4.5 | ERNIE 4.5 Turbo |
| AIME 2025 | 80.7 | 80.6 | 0.1 | ERNIE 4.5 Turbo |
| LiveCodeBench | 70.5 | 74.2 | 3.7 | Sonar Pro Pro |
| IFEval | 85.2 | 87.9 | 2.7 | Sonar Pro Pro |
| TruthfulQA | 82.5 | 79.3 | 3.2 | ERNIE 4.5 Turbo |
| HellaSwag | 87.0 | 88.7 | 1.7 | Sonar Pro Pro |
| MMMU | 73.7 | 78.9 | 5.2 | Sonar Pro Pro |
| Arena Elo | 1419.8 | 1434.0 | 14.2 | Sonar Pro Pro |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, ERNIE 4.5 Turbo costs about $23.90 per million tokens and Sonar Pro Pro costs about $28.56. ERNIE 4.5 Turbo is roughly 16% cheaper than Sonar Pro Pro. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Sonar Pro Pro has the larger context window at 200,000 tokens, compared with 128,000 for ERNIE 4.5 Turbo. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, ERNIE 4.5 Turbo wins 6, Sonar Pro Pro wins 6, and 0 are tied. The two models are effectively tied on the index average at 79.7.
The price picture favours ERNIE 4.5 Turbo. The context picture favours Sonar Pro 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 Turbo if cost is the constraint and Sonar Pro Pro if context is the constraint. Test both on a sample of your own traffic before committing.
Choose ERNIE 4.5 Turbo if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
Choose Sonar Pro Pro if
- You need the larger 200,000-token context window.
- You need the larger 65,536-token output limit.
FAQ
Is ERNIE 4.5 Turbo better than Sonar Pro Pro?
The two models are effectively tied on the index average at 79.7. The better choice depends on price, context and your task. ERNIE 4.5 Turbo wins 6 benchmarks, Sonar Pro Pro wins 6.
Which is cheaper, ERNIE 4.5 Turbo or Sonar Pro Pro?
ERNIE 4.5 Turbo is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $23.90 per million tokens, versus $28.56 for Sonar Pro Pro.
Which has the larger context window?
Sonar Pro Pro has the larger context window at 200,000 tokens. ERNIE 4.5 Turbo has 128,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
ERNIE 4.5 Turbo is proprietary; Sonar Pro Pro is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with ERNIE 4.5 Turbo if cost is the constraint and Sonar Pro Pro if context is the constraint. Test both on a sample of your own traffic before committing.