Perplexity AI's 'Sonar' upgraded to higher performance and lower cost than GPT-4o
Perplexity AI's AI model 'Sonar' has been upgraded with three new search modes and simplified pricing.
Improved Sonar Models: Industry Leading Performance at Lower Costs
Sonar is a proprietary model from Perplexity AI that paid subscribers can select as the default model for the chat service or access via API.
This model has been upgraded to include three new modes: High, Medium, and Low. Each mode has a different processing load, so users can choose the mode that best suits their use case.
High: This mode handles more complex queries and has maximum search processing and context.
- Medium: A balanced mode that handles questions of moderate complexity.
Low: Optimized for cost efficiency by processing simple queries while maintaining accuracy.
The above three modes will be introduced in the basic plan, Sonar, as well as the higher-end plan 'Sonar Pro' which enables advanced query processing, and 'Sonar Reasoning Pro', an inference service using DeepSeek-R1.
The pricing structure has also changed with the addition of the new mode. For the Sonar plan, you can use the 'Low' mode at the same price as before. Below is a table comparing the prices of 'Sonar' and 'Sonar Pro', and OpenAI's 'GPT-4o Mini' and 'GPT-4o'.
Perplexity AI also published a table comparing the cost of 1,000 calls, highlighting how Sonar is cheaper than each of OpenAI's models.
In addition, when 'Sonar' and 'Sonar Pro' were set to 'High' mode and OpenAI's benchmark '
Perplexity AI said, 'The added modes allow Sonar plan users to benefit from decent performance without having to upgrade to Sonar Pro.'
In consideration of the transition, prices will be calculated according to the existing fee structure for 30 days from March 19, 2025, when this announcement was made. During this period, those who want to use the new mode can use it by opting in. After the period ends, each plan will switch to 'Low' mode by default, and users will be able to use the higher mode if they choose.
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