o3 Mini vs Sonar
Updated October 21, 2026. 5 benchmarks have a result for both. Coding is ranked on the Vibe Coding Index; every other board is shown as published.
Decision reading
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
o3 Mini has the edge where the context window is larger, 200K against 127K tokens.
- Shared results
- 5
- o3 Mini only
- 65
- Sonar only
- 0
- Like-for-like categories
- 4 of 9
Shared results can support a head-to-head reading. Results only one model has describe coverage, not superiority.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
No call
Neither has a coding score yet.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
o3 Mini
o3 Mini leads, 12.5 against 7.7.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only o3 Mini has a GPQA Diamond result, 75.5%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only o3 Mini has a AIME result, 86.5%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only o3 Mini has a MMLU Pro result, 78.7%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
o3 Mini
o3 Mini takes 200K tokens against 127K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Sonar
o3 Mini $0.0033, Sonar $0.0015 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- o3 Mini not benchmarked, Sonar not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Coding, 43.9 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run): o3 Mini 73.4% against Sonar 29.5%, 43.9 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- o3 Mini $4.40 against Sonar $1.00 per million output tokens, 4.4x apart.
- Context window
- o3 Mini takes 200K tokens, Sonar 127K.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | o3 Mini | Bars | Sonar | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 1 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 2 | 0 | ||
| Knowledge | 1 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 5 | 0 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index10
| Benchmark | o3 Mini | Sonar | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aider polyglot | 60.4% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| SWE-bench Verified | 42.4% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| SWE-bench Lite | 32.3% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 71.5% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 73.4% | 29.5% | o3 Mini |
| SciCode | 42.8% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 6.8% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| GSO-Bench | 1.3% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| WeirdML | 43.7% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| Cybench | 22.5% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1378 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1364 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 26 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | o3 Mini | Sonar | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 12.5 | 7.7 | o3 Mini |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 140.2 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index1 board, none shared
| Benchmark | o3 Mini | Sonar | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 31.3% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 38 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | o3 Mini | Sonar | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 75.5% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 77.3% | 47.1% | o3 Mini |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 12.0% | 4.9% | o3 Mini |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 77.0% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| ARC-AGI | 34.5% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 3.0% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| SimpleBench | 22.8% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| Chess puzzles | 15.0% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 7.0% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1365 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1364 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1375 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index9 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | o3 Mini | Sonar | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 86.5% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| MATH 500 (Vals AI) | 91.8% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | 91.3% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 76.9% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 18.6% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 0.0% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| MATH level 5 | 96.5% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1396 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1399 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | o3 Mini | Sonar | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 78.7% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 71.5% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 45.3% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 69.4% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 94.8% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 80.2% | 68.9% | o3 Mini |
| SimpleQA Verified | 15.3% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1339 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1330 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1328 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1313 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
Web designNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | o3 Mini | Sonar | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 9 boards here | |||
GeneralDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index23 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | o3 Mini | Sonar | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| IFBench | 67.1% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 43.0% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| DTBench | 68.8% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMCA | 19.0% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 50.0% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| Creative writing (Lech Mazur) | 61.7% | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text | 1337 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1337 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1286 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1351 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1319 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1379 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1303 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1286 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1313 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1334 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1321 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1304 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1294 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1320 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1343 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1313 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1283 | Not measured | Only o3 Mini measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 23 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | o3 Mini | Sonar | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Sonar costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Sonar costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Sonar costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | OpenAI o3 Mini | Perplexity Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | OpenAI | Perplexity |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | January 31, 2025 | January 27, 2025 |
| Context window | 200K | 127K |
| Input $/Mtok | $1.10 | $1.00 |
| Output $/Mtok | $4.40 | $1.00 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 0 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is o3 Mini better than Sonar for coding?
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. o3 Mini has the edge where the context window is larger, 200K against 127K tokens.
Which is cheaper, o3 Mini or Sonar?
o3 Mini costs $1.10 per million input tokens and $4.40 per million output tokens; Sonar costs $1.00 and $1.00. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, o3 Mini or Sonar?
o3 Mini, with 200K tokens against 127K.
How many benchmarks is the o3 Mini vs Sonar comparison based on?
5 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. o3 Mini's coding index rests on 0 independent benchmarks and Sonar's on 0. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.