GPT-4o Mini vs Sonar: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Pricing verified Apr 8, 2026

⚡ Quick Answer

Compare GPT-4o Mini and Sonar across pricing, benchmarks, and capabilities.

Updated: April 8, 2026 · ✓ Pricing verified

Side-by-Side Comparison

FeatureGPT-4o MiniSonar
ProviderOpenAIPerplexity
Input Price / 1M tokens$0.150$1.00
Output Price / 1M tokens$0.600$1.00
Context Window
128K
127K
Max Output Tokens
16,384
4,096
Arena ELO
1,220
1,160
Coding ELO
1,200
1,170
TTFT (ms)
180
150
Tokens/sec
120
100
MultimodalYesNo
JSON ModeYesYes
Function CallingYesYes
VisionYesNo
When to Use GPT-4o Mini

GPT-4o Mini excels at chatbots, lightweight-tasks, cost-sensitive tasks.

Strengths:

  • Extremely affordable pricing
  • Fast response times
  • Strong for its price tier
  • Good multimodal support

Best for:

chatbotslightweight-taskscost-sensitive
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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