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DeepSeek V3 vs Sonar: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Pricing verified Apr 8, 2026

⚡ Quick Answer

Compare DeepSeek V3 and Sonar across pricing, benchmarks, and capabilities.

Updated: April 8, 2026 · ✓ Pricing verified

Side-by-Side Comparison

FeatureDeepSeek V3Sonar
ProviderDeepSeekPerplexity
Input Price / 1M tokens$0.200$1.00
Output Price / 1M tokens$0.770$1.00
Context Window
128K
127K
Max Output Tokens
8,192
4,096
Arena ELO
1,280
1,160
Coding ELO
1,300
1,170
TTFT (ms)
220
150
Tokens/sec
85
100
MultimodalNoNo
JSON ModeYesYes
Function CallingYesYes
VisionNoNo
When to Use DeepSeek V3

DeepSeek V3 excels at coding, general-purpose, cost-sensitive, open-source tasks.

Strengths:

  • Excellent coding performance for its price
  • Open-source and self-hostable
  • Very competitive benchmarks
  • Extremely affordable

Best for:

codinggeneral-purposecost-sensitiveopen-source
When to Use Sonar

Sonar excels at web-search, cost-effective tasks.

Strengths:

  • Web search built-in
  • Affordable
  • Good quality

Best for:

web-searchcost-effective

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