o3 vs Sonar Pro
o3 leads Sonar Pro on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 20.2 to 7.6, and o3 costs 1.9x less per output token ($8.00 vs $15.00 per million). Updated October 21, 2026; 5 benchmarks have a result for both.
o3 or Sonar Pro: which to pick
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick o3 for output tokens 1.9x cheaper ($8.00 vs $15.00 per million).
- Shared results
- 5
- o3 only
- 92
- Sonar Pro only
- 0
- Like-for-like categories
- 4 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
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
o3 leads, 20.2 against 7.6.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only o3 has a GPQA Diamond result, 84.1%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only o3 has a AIME result, 85.3%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only o3 has a MMLU Pro result, 85.6%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only o3 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1036.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
No call
Both take 200K tokens.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
o3
o3 $0.0060, Sonar Pro $0.011 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only o3 has the number, $0.571.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- o3 not benchmarked, Sonar Pro not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Coding, 53.3 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run): o3 80.8% against Sonar Pro 27.5%, 53.3 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- o3 $8.00 against Sonar Pro $15.00 per million output tokens, 1.9x apart.
- Context window
- Both take 200K tokens.
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 | Bars | Sonar Pro | 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 | Sonar Pro | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aider polyglot | 81.3% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| SWE-bench Verified | 58.4% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| SWE-bench Multimodal | 36.0% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 83.9% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 80.8% | 27.5% | o3 |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 37.1% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| GSO-Bench | 8.8% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| WeirdML | 52.4% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 933.5 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1407 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1415 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 27 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | o3 | Sonar Pro | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 20.2 | 7.6 | o3 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 146.7 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index5 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | o3 | Sonar Pro | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 80.7% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| METR time horizons | 65.4% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| GDPval | 30.8% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| DeepResearch Bench | 45.2% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| OSWorld | 23.0% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 34 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | o3 | Sonar Pro | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 84.1% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 80.4% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 82.7% | 57.8% | o3 |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 20.1% | 6.6% | o3 |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 81.8% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| ARC-AGI | 60.8% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 6.5% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| SimpleBench | 53.1% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| Chess puzzles | 37.0% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 29.0% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| VPCT | 52.0% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1402 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1402 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1411 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1220 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1234 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | o3 | Sonar Pro | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 85.3% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| MATH 500 (Vals AI) | 94.6% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | 91.8% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| AA Math Index | 88.3 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 88.3% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 84.4% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 33.3% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| MATH level 5 | 97.8% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1426 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1423 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | o3 | Sonar Pro | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 85.6% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 83.8% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 59.7% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 74.6% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 65.7% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 96.1% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 47.3% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 85.3% | 75.5% | o3 |
| SimpleQA Verified | 49.4% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| GeoBench | 74.0% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1429 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1448 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1428 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1393 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index5 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | o3 | Sonar Pro | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1036 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1017 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1034 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1200 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1020 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here | |||
GeneralDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index34 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | o3 | Sonar Pro | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 41.8% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 76.7% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| IFBench | 71.4% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 74.7% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| DTBench | 84.8% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMCA | 39.7% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 88.9% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| Creative writing (Lech Mazur) | 83.9% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| CL-bench | 17.8% | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1410 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1368 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1359 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Vision | 1214 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1417 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1401 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1437 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1420 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1403 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1370 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1430 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1395 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1406 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1438 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1405 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1372 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1372 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1373 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1221 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1237 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1218 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1222 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Vision: captioning | 1210 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Vision: recognizing things | 1234 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1201 | Not measured | Only o3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 12 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | o3 | Sonar Pro | 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
o3 costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
o3 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
o3 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 | Perplexity Sonar Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | OpenAI | Perplexity |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | April 16, 2025 | March 7, 2025 |
| Context window | 200K | 200K |
| Input $/Mtok | $2.00 | $3.00 |
| Output $/Mtok | $8.00 | $15.00 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 0 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.571 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is o3 better than Sonar Pro for coding?
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick o3 for output tokens 1.9x cheaper ($8.00 vs $15.00 per million).
Which is cheaper, o3 or Sonar Pro?
o3 costs $2.00 per million input tokens and $8.00 per million output tokens; Sonar Pro costs $3.00 and $15.00. Cost per solved task is known for o3 only.
Which has the bigger context window, o3 or Sonar Pro?
Neither: both take 200K tokens.
How many benchmarks is the o3 vs Sonar Pro comparison based on?
5 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. o3's coding index rests on 0 independent benchmarks and Sonar Pro's on 0. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.