Sonar Pro Search Paid vs 
Seed 1.6 Paid
Sonar Pro Search vs Seed 1.6 compared — price per token, context window, multimodality, openness and which to choose. Full 2026 breakdown.
Sonar Pro Search — full profile › · Seed 1.6 — full profile ›
Prices & specs refreshed from live data · olud.ai
Open-model prices = cheapest provider via OpenRouter; official maker rates may be higher.
$15 /M outputManaged API (no infra to run)
$2 /M outputManaged API (no infra to run)
Sonar Pro Search vs Seed 1.6 specs
| Spec | Sonar Pro Search | Seed 1.6 | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maker | Perplexity | ByteDance Seed | – |
| Type | Proprietary | Proprietary | – |
| Context window | 200K tokens | 262K tokens | |
| Input price | $3/M | $0.25/M | |
| Output price | $15/M | $2/M | |
| Vision / multimodal | Yes | Yes | = Tie |
| Tool / function calling | No | Yes | |
| Self-hostable | No (API only) | No (API only) | – |
| License | Proprietary | Proprietary | – |
Price gap & when to choose each
Seed 1.6 is ~7.5× cheaper than Sonar Pro Search on output tokens ($2 vs $15 per M tokens).
- You want frontier performance through a managed API
- You value reliability & ecosystem
- You don't want to manage infrastructure
- You want frontier performance through a managed API
- You need the longer 262K context window
- You want the lower output price
- You value reliability & ecosystem
- You don't want to manage infrastructure
Feature comparison
| Capability | Sonar Pro Search | Seed 1.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Open weights (downloadable) | ✗ | ✗ |
| Self-hostable | ✗ | ✗ |
| Runs fully offline | ✗ | ✗ |
| Vision / multimodal | ✓ | ✓ |
| Tool / function calling | ✗ | ✓ |
| 1M+ context window | ✗ | ✗ |
How Sonar Pro Search and Seed 1.6 score
| Criterion | Sonar Pro Search | Seed 1.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Cost-efficiency | 3.0 | 4.5 |
| Context window | 4.0 | 4.0 |
| Openness | 1.5 | 1.5 |
| Self-hosting | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| Multimodality | 3.5 | 5.0 |
Scores come from live data — output price (cost), context length, open vs closed weights (openness & self-hosting) and vision/tool support (multimodality). Raw task quality isn't scored here; it depends on your benchmark — see the verdict.
What each model is
Sonar Pro Search Paid
Exclusively available on the OpenRouter API, Sonar Pro's new Pro Search mode is Perplexity's most advanced agentic search system. It is designed for deeper reasoning and analysis. Pricing is based...
Seed 1.6 Paid
Seed 1.6 is a general-purpose model released by the ByteDance Seed team. It incorporates multimodal capabilities and adaptive deep thinking with a 256K context window.
Frequently asked questions
Sonar Pro Search vs Seed 1.6 — which is cheaper?
Seed 1.6 is cheaper on output ($2/M vs $15/M).
Which has the larger context window?
Seed 1.6 offers the larger context window (262K tokens).
Sonar Pro Search vs Seed 1.6 — which should I pick in 2026?
Choose Seed 1.6 for the lower output price ($2/M vs $15/M). It also gives you the larger 262K context window.
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