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o4-mini 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

o4-mini specs · Sonar Large specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceSonar Large

    Sonar Large is roughly 4.4× cheaper on output tokens ($1.00 vs $4.40 per 1M).

  • Context windowo4-mini

    o4-mini 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.

  • Modalitieso4-mini

    o4-mini supports 2 modalities (text, vision) vs 1 for Sonar Large.

  • OpennessTie

    Both are closed-weight, API-only.

On balance o4-mini edges ahead, winning 2 of 5 categories against Sonar Large's 1. Sonar Large is roughly 4.4× cheaper on output tokens ($1.00 vs $4.40 per 1M). o4-mini 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, o4-mini 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.

o4-mini is the newer of the two, released 5 months after Sonar Large, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. o4-mini is usually picked for reasoning and math 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

Speco4-miniSonar Large
ProviderOpenAIPerplexity
ReleasedApr 2025Nov 2024
Modalitiestext, visiontext
Context window200K tokens127K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1M$1.10 / 1M tokens$1.00 / 1M tokens
Output · 1M$4.40 / 1M tokens$1.00 / 1M tokens
Knowledge cutoff2024-06,
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$9.90 vs $4.50
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$99.00 vs $45.00
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$191 vs $156

Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: $9.90 vs $4.50 per month, model B comes out ahead. Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: $99.00 vs $45.00 per month, model B comes out ahead. RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: $191 vs $156 per month, model B 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.

  • o4-mini$0.330
  • 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.

o4-miniSonar Large
  • GPQA81.4
Pick o4-mini if

o4-mini fits when…

  • Strong reasoning at mid-tier price
  • Fast for a thinking model
  • Solid tool-use
  • 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, 4.4× cheaper than o4-mini on output tokens.
Don't want either?

Consider GPT-5.5

OpenAI's mid-cycle GPT-5 refresh, improved reasoning, tool use, and multimodal grounding over the 2025 launch.

See GPT-5.5 specso4-mini vs GPT-5.5Sonar Large vs GPT-5.5

Frequently asked

  • Is o4-mini or Sonar Large cheaper?
    Sonar Large is cheaper at $1.00 / 1M tokens per million output tokens, vs $4.40 / 1M tokens for o4-mini.
  • Which has the larger context window?
    o4-mini accepts 200K tokens vs 127K for Sonar Large.
  • Is o4-mini or Sonar Large better for coding?
    Both o4-mini 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 o4-mini and Sonar Large released?
    o4-mini was released by OpenAI on 2025-04-16. Sonar Large was released by Perplexity on 2024-11-19.
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