ERNIE 4.5 Turbo vs Sonar Pro Turbo: which model should you choose?
We compared ERNIE 4.5 Turbo and Sonar Pro Turbo on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. ERNIE 4.5 Turbo has the stronger average benchmark score; 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 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 Turbo | Sonar Pro Turbo | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $13.75 | $13.55 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $54.36 | $57.97 | A |
| Context window | 128,000 | 128,000 | Tie |
| Max output | 32,768 | 4,096 | A |
| Average score | 79.7 | 79.0 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1419.8 | 1434.8 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
ERNIE 4.5 Turbo wins 7, Sonar Pro Turbo wins 5, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | ERNIE 4.5 Turbo | Sonar Pro Turbo | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 84.0 | 81.6 | 2.4 | ERNIE 4.5 Turbo |
| GPQA Diamond | 73.0 | 74.2 | 1.2 | Sonar Pro Turbo |
| SWE-bench Verified | 67.5 | 66.3 | 1.2 | ERNIE 4.5 Turbo |
| HumanEval | 86.4 | 84.7 | 1.7 | ERNIE 4.5 Turbo |
| MATH-500 | 86.4 | 84.1 | 2.3 | ERNIE 4.5 Turbo |
| AIME 2025 | 80.7 | 73.9 | 6.8 | ERNIE 4.5 Turbo |
| LiveCodeBench | 70.5 | 73.7 | 3.2 | Sonar Pro Turbo |
| IFEval | 85.2 | 84.9 | 0.3 | ERNIE 4.5 Turbo |
| TruthfulQA | 82.5 | 81.2 | 1.3 | ERNIE 4.5 Turbo |
| HellaSwag | 87.0 | 89.3 | 2.3 | Sonar Pro Turbo |
| MMMU | 73.7 | 75.2 | 1.5 | Sonar Pro Turbo |
| Arena Elo | 1419.8 | 1434.8 | 15.0 | Sonar Pro Turbo |
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 Turbo costs about $24.66. ERNIE 4.5 Turbo is roughly 3% cheaper than Sonar Pro Turbo. 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, ERNIE 4.5 Turbo wins 7, Sonar Pro Turbo wins 5, and 0 are tied. On the index average, ERNIE 4.5 Turbo leads Sonar Pro Turbo by 0.7 points (79.7 versus 79.0).
The price picture favours ERNIE 4.5 Turbo. 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 ERNIE 4.5 Turbo for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.
Choose ERNIE 4.5 Turbo 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 32,768-token output limit.
Choose Sonar Pro Turbo if
- You prefer Perplexity's tooling or already use it.
FAQ
Is ERNIE 4.5 Turbo better than Sonar Pro Turbo?
On the index average, ERNIE 4.5 Turbo leads Sonar Pro Turbo by 0.7 points (79.7 versus 79.0). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. ERNIE 4.5 Turbo wins 7 benchmarks, Sonar Pro Turbo wins 5.
Which is cheaper, ERNIE 4.5 Turbo or Sonar Pro Turbo?
ERNIE 4.5 Turbo is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $23.90 per million tokens, versus $24.66 for Sonar Pro Turbo.
Which has the larger context window?
Both models list a 128,000-token context window.
Are these models open weights?
ERNIE 4.5 Turbo is proprietary; Sonar Pro Turbo is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with ERNIE 4.5 Turbo for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.