Nova Pro Max vs Sonar Pro Max: which model should you choose?
We compared Nova Pro Max and Sonar Pro Max on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Nova Pro Max has the stronger average benchmark score; Sonar Pro Max is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Nova Pro Max
Nova Pro Max is a multimodal model from Amazon. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $14.05 per million input tokens and $71.59 per million output tokens, and averages 81.2 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $14.05 / 1M
- Output
- $71.59 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 81.2
- 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 | Nova Pro Max | Sonar Pro Max | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $14.05 | $14.01 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $71.59 | $69.33 | B |
| Context window | 1,000,000 | 128,000 | A |
| Max output | 16,384 | 4,096 | A |
| Average score | 81.2 | 81.1 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1423.2 | 1437.8 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Nova Pro Max wins 6, Sonar Pro Max wins 5, and 1 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Nova Pro Max | Sonar Pro Max | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 84.2 | 83.7 | 0.5 | Nova Pro Max |
| GPQA Diamond | 78.3 | 78.8 | 0.5 | Sonar Pro Max |
| SWE-bench Verified | 67.4 | 71.7 | 4.3 | Sonar Pro Max |
| HumanEval | 87.5 | 85.1 | 2.4 | Nova Pro Max |
| MATH-500 | 83.8 | 86.2 | 2.4 | Sonar Pro Max |
| AIME 2025 | 79.3 | 74.9 | 4.4 | Nova Pro Max |
| LiveCodeBench | 77.0 | 75.7 | 1.3 | Nova Pro Max |
| IFEval | 86.4 | 88.3 | 1.9 | Sonar Pro Max |
| TruthfulQA | 83.4 | 82.0 | 1.4 | Nova Pro Max |
| HellaSwag | 88.9 | 88.0 | 0.9 | Nova Pro Max |
| MMMU | 77.2 | 77.2 | 0.0 | Tie |
| Arena Elo | 1423.2 | 1437.8 | 14.6 | Sonar Pro Max |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Nova Pro Max costs about $28.44 per million tokens and Sonar Pro Max costs about $27.84. Sonar Pro Max is roughly 2% cheaper than Nova Pro Max. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Nova Pro Max has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens, compared with 128,000 for Sonar Pro Max. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Nova Pro Max wins 6, Sonar Pro Max wins 5, and 1 are tied. On the index average, Nova Pro Max leads Sonar Pro Max by 0.1 points (81.2 versus 81.1).
The price picture favours Sonar Pro Max. The context picture favours Nova Pro Max. 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 Nova Pro Max for quality-sensitive work and Sonar Pro Max for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose Nova Pro Max 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 16,384-token output limit.
Choose Sonar Pro Max if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
FAQ
Is Nova Pro Max better than Sonar Pro Max?
On the index average, Nova Pro Max leads Sonar Pro Max by 0.1 points (81.2 versus 81.1). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Nova Pro Max wins 6 benchmarks, Sonar Pro Max wins 5.
Which is cheaper, Nova Pro Max or Sonar Pro Max?
Sonar Pro Max is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $27.84 per million tokens, versus $28.44 for Nova Pro Max.
Which has the larger context window?
Nova Pro Max has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens. Sonar Pro Max has 128,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Nova Pro Max is proprietary; Sonar Pro Max is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Nova Pro Max for quality-sensitive work and Sonar Pro Max for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.