Model comparison
GPT-4.1 nano vs Sonar
Sonar is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.5 to 27.9 on the Noometry Index. GPT-4.1 nano costs 5.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Sonar's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 0 shared benchmarks.
PerplexitySummary
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Sonar leads 21.1 to 8.5.
- GPT-4.1 nano is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.40 per million input/output tokens, against $1 / $1 for Sonar.
- GPT-4.1 nano accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 128K.
Side by side
| GPT-4.1 nano | Sonar | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | Perplexity |
| Noometry Index | 27.9 | 38.5 |
| Released | 2025-04-14 | 2024-01-01 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 1.05M | 128K |
| Max output | 33K | 4K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.10 | $1 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.40 | $1 |
| Results tracked | 38 | 7 |
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Category by category
Coding Sonar leads
GPT-4.1 nano: 24.1 (#330), Sonar: 35.7 (#221)
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Aider Polyglot | 8.9% | — |
| SciCode | 25.9% | — |
| WeirdML | 19% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 35.1% |
| LMArena Coding | 1306 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
GPT-4.1 nano: 26.5 (#104), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 33% | — |
Reasoning Sonar leads
GPT-4.1 nano: 8.5 (#349), Sonar: 21.1 (#227)
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 33.3% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 0% | — |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 46.3% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1286 | — |
| DTBench | 52.5% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 37.9% |
| LMCA | 5.5% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 129.62 | — |
| LiveBench | — | 46.9% |
Math Sonar leads
GPT-4.1 nano: 26.9 (#252), Sonar: 33.7 (#200)
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 28.9% | — |
| Omni-MATH | 36.7% | — |
| LiveBench Math | — | 41.6% |
| LMArena Math | 1274 | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 70% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 1% | — |
Knowledge Not comparable
GPT-4.1 nano: 21.8 (#273), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 48.9% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 6% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 55% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 50.7% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1272 | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
GPT-4.1 nano: 29.2 (#113), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1063 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
GPT-4.1 nano: 41.6 (#205), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1260 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1270 | — |
| LMArena German | 1288 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1198 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1261 | — |
Instruction Following Sonar leads
GPT-4.1 nano: 67.8 (#193), Sonar: 71.4 (#150)
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 76.2% |
| IFEval | 84.3% | — |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1267 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
GPT-4.1 nano: 23.7 (#296), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | 25% | — |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1283 | — |
Writing & Preference Sonar leads
GPT-4.1 nano: 40.5 (#243), Sonar: 52.6 (#167)
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1285 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1260 | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 946 | — |
| WildBench | 81.2% | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1277 | — |
| LiveBench Language | — | 44.1% |
Frequently asked questions
Is GPT-4.1 nano better than Sonar?
Sonar is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.5 to 27.9 on the Noometry Index. GPT-4.1 nano costs 5.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Sonar's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, GPT-4.1 nano or Sonar?
GPT-4.1 nano is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.40 per million output tokens; Sonar lists at $1 and $1.
Is GPT-4.1 nano or Sonar better for coding?
Sonar scores higher on coding benchmarks: 35.7 versus 24.1 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
GPT-4.1 nano does, with 1.05M tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do GPT-4.1 nano and Sonar share?
0 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-4.1 nano has 38 scored results on Noometry and Sonar has 7.