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Models / Perplexity

Sonar

Deprecated

Lightweight, cost-effective real-time web search model with grounding/citations. 128K context. Token pricing $1/$1 per 1M in/out. Additional per-request search fee NOT included in token price: $5/$8/$12 per 1,000 requests for low/medium/high search context size (pricing page). Supports image uploads (added Apr 2025) and file attachments PDF/DOC/DOCX/TXT/RTF (added Sep 2025). Max output tokens not published by Perplexity. Knowledge cutoff not published (search-grounded model with live web access). Pricing page fetched 2026-06-28; token and request rates re-read unchanged on the pricing page 2026-09-29, which still publishes the Sonar API tables. LIFECYCLE (read 2026-09-29): Perplexity's Sonar migration guide states 'Sonar Chat Completions support ended on September 27, 2026. Synchronous and streaming requests keep working: they are being reformulated as Agent API requests, rolling out gradually by model. Asynchronous Sonar requests are not reformulated and are no longer supported'. The changelog files the migration under 'Deprecation' (July 2026, no day given), so deprecated_on carries the stated support-end date, 2026-09-27. Signal used: that first-party sentence. Status is deprecated, NOT retired: Perplexity says synchronous calls still work and states no shutdown date, so retires_on stays null. Perplexity's comparable Agent API preset for Sonar is 'fast' (migration guide mapping table); presets are not catalog models, so replacement stays null. The former per-model docs page now redirects to the migration guide.

Sonar by Perplexity costs $1 per 1M input tokens and $1 per 1M output tokens ($1/1M blended), with a 128K (128.000-token) context window. It is deprecated.

Last verified: 24 Oct 2026 · sourced from official provider documentation

Deprecated since 27 Sep 2026 · no retirement date published

Lifecycle warning

This model is deprecated.

Read the Sonar migration guide → replacement & cheapest alternatives

Provider
Perplexity
Status
Deprecated
Input price
$1 / 1M tokens
Output price
$1 / 1M tokens
Cached input
—
Blended price
$1 / 1M tokens
Context window
128.000 tokens (128K)
Max output
—
Modality
text, image
Open weights
No — API only
Knowledge cutoff
—
Released
Jan 2025
API string
sonar

Source: Perplexity official documentation ↗

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FAQ

Sonar — questions & answers

How much does Sonar cost?

Sonar is priced at $1 per 1M input tokens and $1 per 1M output tokens ($1/1M blended at a 3:1 input-to-output ratio).

What is the context window of Sonar?

Sonar has a 128.000-token context window (128K).

Is Sonar being deprecated or retired?

Sonar is deprecated. It was deprecated on 27 Sep 2026; no retirement date has been published yet.

Does Sonar support image or vision input?

Yes — Sonar accepts image input. Listed modalities: text, image.

Can I self-host Sonar?

No — Sonar is proprietary. Its weights are not publicly released, so it is available only through Perplexity's API (or hosted partners), not for self-hosting.

What is the API model string for Sonar?

The API model identifier for Sonar is "sonar" when calling Perplexity's API.