Grok 4 vs Sonar Pro
A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.
Updated
Grok 4 specs · Sonar Pro specs- PriceTie
Both land near $15.00 / 1M output tokens, call it a wash on cost.
- Context windowGrok 4
Grok 4 accepts 256K tokens vs 200K, 1.3× 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.
- ModalitiesGrok 4
Grok 4 supports 2 modalities (text, vision) vs 1 for Sonar Pro.
- OpennessTie
Both are closed-weight, API-only.
On balance Grok 4 edges ahead, winning 2 of 5 categories against Sonar Pro's 0. Both land near $15.00 / 1M output tokens, call it a wash on cost. Grok 4 accepts 256K tokens vs 200K, 1.3× 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, Grok 4 handles text, vision while Sonar Pro handles text, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Both are closed-weight, API-only.
Grok 4 is the newer of the two, released 6 months after Sonar Pro, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Grok 4 is usually picked for reasoning and research agent workloads, while Sonar Pro 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
| Spec | Grok 4 | Sonar Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | xAI | Perplexity |
| Released | Jul 2025 | Jan 2025 |
| Modalities | text, vision | text |
| Context window | 256K tokens | 200K tokens |
| Max output | , | , |
| Input · 1M | $3.00 / 1M tokens | $3.00 / 1M tokens |
| Output · 1M | $15.00 / 1M tokens | $15.00 / 1M tokens |
| Knowledge cutoff | 2024-11 | , |
| Open weights | No | No |
| API available | Yes | Yes |
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$31.50 vs $31.50
- Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$315 vs $315
- RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$540 vs $540
Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: both models cost about $31.50 a month, call it a tie. Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: both models cost about $315 a month, call it a tie. RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: both models cost about $540 a month, call it a tie.
Estimated spend for the listed models at your usage. Numbers are derived from each model's published per-million-token rates.
- Grok 4$1.05
- Sonar Pro$1.05
Benchmarks compared
Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.
- GPQA87.5
Grok 4 fits when…
- Real-time X data access
- Strong on benchmarks at launch
- Less restrictive content policy than peers
- Multimodal needs covering vision.
Sonar Pro fits when…
- Multi-step web search
- Deep research output
- Citations
Consider Grok 3
xAI's first frontier-tier release, established the company's Colossus-trained model line.
Frequently asked
Is Grok 4 or Sonar Pro cheaper?
Both Grok 4 and Sonar Pro are priced equivalently at $15.00 / 1M tokens per million output tokens.Which has the larger context window?
Grok 4 accepts 256K tokens vs 200K for Sonar Pro.Is Grok 4 or Sonar Pro better for coding?
Both Grok 4 and Sonar Pro 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 Grok 4 and Sonar Pro released?
Grok 4 was released by xAI on 2025-07-09. Sonar Pro was released by Perplexity on 2025-01-21.
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