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Claude 3.5 Haiku vs Sonar Large

A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.

Updated

Claude 3.5 Haiku specs · Sonar Large specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceSonar Large

    Sonar Large is roughly 4.0× cheaper on output tokens ($1.00 vs $4.00 per 1M).

  • Context windowClaude 3.5 Haiku

    Claude 3.5 Haiku accepts 200K tokens vs 127K, 1.6× the room for long documents and codebases.

  • BenchmarksTie

    No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores.

  • ModalitiesClaude 3.5 Haiku

    Claude 3.5 Haiku supports 2 modalities (text, vision) vs 1 for Sonar Large.

  • OpennessTie

    Both are closed-weight, API-only.

On balance Claude 3.5 Haiku edges ahead, winning 2 of 5 categories against Sonar Large's 1. Sonar Large is roughly 4.0× cheaper on output tokens ($1.00 vs $4.00 per 1M). Claude 3.5 Haiku accepts 200K tokens vs 127K, 1.6× the room for long documents and codebases.

No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. They differ in modality coverage, Claude 3.5 Haiku handles text, vision while Sonar Large handles text, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Both are closed-weight, API-only.

Both shipped within roughly a month of each other in 2024, so they share the same generation of training data and tooling. Claude 3.5 Haiku is usually picked for customer support and code completion workloads, while Sonar Large sees more deployments in research agent and rag. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

SpecClaude 3.5 HaikuSonar Large
ProviderAnthropicPerplexity
ReleasedNov 2024Nov 2024
Modalitiestext, visiontext
Context window200K tokens127K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1M$0.80 / 1M tokens$1.00 / 1M tokens
Output · 1M$4.00 / 1M tokens$1.00 / 1M tokens
Knowledge cutoff,,
Open weightsNoNo
API availableYesYes

Pricing at scale

What you'd actually pay at typical workloads. Numbers come from each model's published per-million-token rates.

  • Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day$8.40 vs $4.50
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$84.00 vs $45.00
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$144 vs $156

Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: $8.40 vs $4.50 per month, model B comes out ahead. Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: $84.00 vs $45.00 per month, model B comes out ahead. RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: $144 vs $156 per month, model A comes out ahead.

Price calculator

Estimated spend for the listed models at your usage. Numbers are derived from each model's published per-million-token rates.

  • Claude 3.5 Haiku$0.280
  • Sonar Large$0.150

Benchmarks compared

Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.

Benchmark scores not yet available. We only publish numbers we can source from official model cards or independent leaderboards, see methodology.
Pick Claude 3.5 Haiku if

Claude 3.5 Haiku fits when…

  • Fast
  • Cheap for Anthropic
  • Strong code at small size
  • Long-context tasks, handles 200K tokens vs 127K for Sonar Large.
  • Multimodal needs covering vision.
Pick Sonar Large if

Sonar Large fits when…

  • Web-search grounded
  • Citation-first output
  • Cheap
  • Cost-sensitive workloads, 4.0× cheaper than Claude 3.5 Haiku on output tokens.
Don't want either?

Consider Claude Opus 4.7

Anthropic's mid-2026 flagship, ahead on SWE-bench, agent reliability, and writing quality.

See Claude Opus 4.7 specsClaude 3.5 Haiku vs Claude Opus 4.7Sonar Large vs Claude Opus 4.7

Frequently asked

  • Is Claude 3.5 Haiku or Sonar Large cheaper?
    Sonar Large is cheaper at $1.00 / 1M tokens per million output tokens, vs $4.00 / 1M tokens for Claude 3.5 Haiku.
  • Which has the larger context window?
    Claude 3.5 Haiku accepts 200K tokens vs 127K for Sonar Large.
  • Is Claude 3.5 Haiku or Sonar Large better for coding?
    Both Claude 3.5 Haiku and Sonar Large are competitive on coding benchmarks. See each model's individual spec page for HumanEval and SWE-bench scores where published. For an opinionated pick, consult our Best LLM for Coding ranking.
  • Are either of these models open source?
    Neither model ships open weights, both are accessible only via their respective providers' APIs.
  • When were Claude 3.5 Haiku and Sonar Large released?
    Claude 3.5 Haiku was released by Anthropic on 2024-11-04. Sonar Large was released by Perplexity on 2024-11-19.
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