Head-to-head comparison
Sonar Deep Research (Perplexity) and Sonar Pro Search (Perplexity) compared on the ModelCap Index, API price, context window, provider availability, weight access and every public benchmark board they share. Figures are the same ones shown on the live rankings; nothing here is a hidden score.
Snapshot as of 17 August 2026
As of 17 August 2026, Sonar Deep Research holds the stronger ModelCap Index position (#232 vs #233); Sonar Deep Research is 1.9× cheaper per output token ($8.00/1M vs $15.00/1M); and Sonar Pro Search offers the longer context window (200K vs 128K tokens).
Evidence: publisher corpus prior · leave-one-anchor-out calibrated · publisher corpus prior · leave-one-anchor-out calibrated. Prices are the lowest listed API offer per million tokens observed on the OpenRouter catalogue.
Neither model has a published result on a public benchmark board ModelCap tracks yet.
Scores are the sources' own published figures for each model's best evaluated configuration; ModelCap never re-runs a benchmark.
Want a different pairing? Open the interactive comparison tool to swap either model for any current ranked language model.
Sonar Deep Research ranks higher on the ModelCap Index as of 17 August 2026: #232 against #233. That is a capability ranking built from public benchmark evidence with published uncertainty; whether it is "better" for you also depends on price, context and where you can run it.
Sonar Deep Research is cheaper on output tokens: $8.00/1M against $15.00/1M. Input tokens are $2.00/1M for Sonar Deep Research and $3.00/1M for Sonar Pro Search. Prices are the lowest listed API offer ModelCap observed, in USD per million tokens.
Sonar Pro Search has the larger context window: 200K tokens against 128K.
The two models do not share a coding benchmark board on ModelCap yet, so no head-to-head coding score is published; the ModelCap Index position is the closest overall signal.
Sonar Deep Research: API only. Sonar Pro Search: API only. Open weights mean the checkpoint can be downloaded and self-hosted under its licence; API-only models are available solely through hosted endpoints.
ModelCap currently lists 1 API provider for Sonar Deep Research and 1 for Sonar Pro Search, from the OpenRouter catalogue snapshot the site serves; each model page lists the providers and their prices.
Every figure comes from the sealed ModelCap dataset published 17 August 2026; the page re-renders within a minute of each data refresh, and the ModelCap Index positions are the same ones shown on the live rankings.