AI Models · Paid vs Paid

Sonar Pro Search Paid vs Solar Pro 3 Paid

Sonar Pro Search vs Solar Pro 3 compared — price per token, context window, multimodality, openness and which to choose. Full 2026 breakdown.

Prices & specs refreshed from live data · olud.ai

Open-model prices = cheapest provider via OpenRouter; official maker rates may be higher.

Sonar Pro SearchPaidPerplexity
$3 /M input
$15 /M outputManaged API (no infra to run)
TypeProprietary
Context window200K tokens
MultimodalYes
Self-hostNo
Solar Pro 3PaidUpstage
$0.15 /M input
$0.6 /M outputManaged API (no infra to run)
TypeProprietary
Context window131K tokens
MultimodalNo
Self-hostNo
Choose Solar Pro 3 for the lower output price ($0.6/M vs $15/M). Choose Sonar Pro Search if you need the larger 200K context window.

Sonar Pro Search vs Solar Pro 3 specs

SpecSonar Pro SearchSolar Pro 3Winner
MakerPerplexityUpstage
TypeProprietaryProprietary
Context window200K tokens131K tokensSonar Pro Search
Input price$3/M$0.15/MSolar Pro 3
Output price$15/M$0.6/MSolar Pro 3
Vision / multimodalYesNoSonar Pro Search
Tool / function callingNoYesSolar Pro 3
Self-hostableNo (API only)No (API only)
LicenseProprietaryProprietary

Price gap & when to choose each

25×cheaper per output token

Solar Pro 3 is ~25× cheaper than Sonar Pro Search on output tokens ($0.6 vs $15 per M tokens).

Choose Sonar Pro Search if…
  • You want frontier performance through a managed API
  • You need the longer 200K context window
  • You value reliability & ecosystem
  • You don't want to manage infrastructure
Choose Solar Pro 3 if…
  • You want frontier performance through a managed API
  • You want the lower output price
  • You value reliability & ecosystem
  • You don't want to manage infrastructure

Feature comparison

CapabilitySonar Pro SearchSolar Pro 3
Open weights (downloadable)
Self-hostable
Runs fully offline
Vision / multimodal
Tool / function calling
1M+ context window

Benchmarks: Sonar Pro Search vs Solar Pro 3

Independent benchmark scores measured by Artificial Analysis. Higher is better (except latency).

Sonar Pro Search
Solar Pro 3
Intelligence index
7.8
Coding index
16.2
GPQA
72.4%
Humanity's Last Exam
10.3%
Long Context Reasoning
32.3%
SciCode
25.5%
IFBench
71.2%
τ²-Bench
86.3%
τ-Bench Banking
8.7%
Terminal-Bench
12%
Terminal-Bench Hard
7.6%
Speed
157.2 tok/s
Latency
1.33s
Intelligence per $
29.8

Benchmark data by Artificial Analysis.

How Sonar Pro Search and Solar Pro 3 score

🏆 Best value & openness: Solar Pro 3 (2.9 vs 2.6 / 5)
CriterionSonar Pro SearchSolar Pro 3
Cost-efficiency3.05.0
Context window4.03.5
Openness1.51.5
Self-hosting1.01.0
Multimodality3.53.5

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

Perplexity · Proprietary

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...

Solar Pro 3 Paid

Upstage · Proprietary

Solar Pro 3 is Upstage's powerful Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) language model. With 102B total parameters and 12B active parameters per forward pass, it delivers exceptional performance while maintaining computational efficiency. Optimized...

Frequently asked questions

Sonar Pro Search vs Solar Pro 3 — which is cheaper?

Solar Pro 3 is cheaper on output ($0.6/M vs $15/M).

Which has the larger context window?

Sonar Pro Search offers the larger context window (200K tokens).

Sonar Pro Search vs Solar Pro 3 — which should I pick in 2026?

Choose Solar Pro 3 for the lower output price ($0.6/M vs $15/M). Choose Sonar Pro Search if you need the larger 200K context window.

People also compare

Explore more open-source AI

Browse the full open-source model leaderboard, thousands of tools and live benchmarks — all in one place.

Open the leaderboard →