LLMversus

o3-mini vs Sonar: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Pricing verified Aug 10, 2026By LLMversusUpdated August 11, 2026View methodology

⚡ Quick Answer

Compare o3-mini and Sonar across pricing, benchmarks, and capabilities.

Updated: August 10, 2026 · ✓ Pricing verified

Side-by-Side Comparison

Featureo3-miniSonar
ProviderOpenAIPerplexity
Input Price / 1M tokens$1.10$1.00
Output Price / 1M tokens$4.40$1.00
Context Window
128K
127K
Max Output Tokens
65,536
4,096
Arena ELO
1,348
1,160
Coding ELO
1,348
1,170
TTFT (ms)
350
150
Tokens/sec
25
100
MultimodalNoNo
JSON ModeYesYes
Function CallingNoYes
VisionNoNo
When to Use o3-mini

o3-mini excels at reasoning, math, general-purpose tasks.

Strengths:

  • Strong reasoning
  • Good math skills
  • Affordable reasoning

Best for:

reasoningmathgeneral-purpose
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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