Sonar Pro Max vs Sonar Pro Reasoning: which model should you choose?
We compared Sonar Pro Max and Sonar Pro Reasoning on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Sonar Pro Max has the stronger average benchmark score; Sonar Pro Max is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
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
Sonar Pro Reasoning
Sonar Pro Reasoning is a multimodal model from Perplexity. It offers a 128,000-token context window, costs $13.94 per million input tokens and $72.76 per million output tokens, and averages 80.5 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $13.94 / 1M
- Output
- $72.76 / 1M
- Context
- 128,000
- Avg score
- 80.5
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Sonar Pro Max | Sonar Pro Reasoning | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $14.01 | $13.94 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $69.33 | $72.76 | A |
| Context window | 128,000 | 128,000 | Tie |
| Max output | 4,096 | 32,768 | B |
| Average score | 81.1 | 80.5 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1437.8 | 1439.7 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Sonar Pro Max wins 8, Sonar Pro Reasoning wins 3, and 1 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Sonar Pro Max | Sonar Pro Reasoning | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 83.7 | 82.6 | 1.1 | Sonar Pro Max |
| GPQA Diamond | 78.8 | 76.2 | 2.6 | Sonar Pro Max |
| SWE-bench Verified | 71.7 | 71.7 | 0.0 | Tie |
| HumanEval | 85.1 | 82.7 | 2.4 | Sonar Pro Max |
| MATH-500 | 86.2 | 85.1 | 1.1 | Sonar Pro Max |
| AIME 2025 | 74.9 | 73.7 | 1.2 | Sonar Pro Max |
| LiveCodeBench | 75.7 | 75.6 | 0.1 | Sonar Pro Max |
| IFEval | 88.3 | 87.1 | 1.2 | Sonar Pro Max |
| TruthfulQA | 82.0 | 84.4 | 2.4 | Sonar Pro Reasoning |
| HellaSwag | 88.0 | 89.9 | 1.9 | Sonar Pro Reasoning |
| MMMU | 77.2 | 76.1 | 1.1 | Sonar Pro Max |
| Arena Elo | 1437.8 | 1439.7 | 1.9 | Sonar Pro Reasoning |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Sonar Pro Max costs about $27.84 per million tokens and Sonar Pro Reasoning costs about $28.65. Sonar Pro Max is roughly 3% cheaper than Sonar Pro Reasoning. 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, Sonar Pro Max wins 8, Sonar Pro Reasoning wins 3, and 1 are tied. On the index average, Sonar Pro Max leads Sonar Pro Reasoning by 0.6 points (81.1 versus 80.5).
The price picture favours Sonar Pro Max. 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 check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.
Choose Sonar Pro Max if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
Choose Sonar Pro Reasoning if
- You need the larger 32,768-token output limit.
- The workload needs multi-step reasoning.
FAQ
Is Sonar Pro Max better than Sonar Pro Reasoning?
On the index average, Sonar Pro Max leads Sonar Pro Reasoning by 0.6 points (81.1 versus 80.5). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Sonar Pro Max wins 8 benchmarks, Sonar Pro Reasoning wins 3.
Which is cheaper, Sonar Pro Max or Sonar Pro Reasoning?
Sonar Pro Max is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $27.84 per million tokens, versus $28.65 for Sonar Pro Reasoning.
Which has the larger context window?
Both models list a 128,000-token context window.
Are these models open weights?
Sonar Pro Max is proprietary; Sonar Pro Reasoning is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Sonar Pro Max for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.