AI model comparison
Sonar Pro vs Mixtral 8x22B Instruct
Pricing, context window, benchmarks, and features compared side by side. Or skip the guesswork and send one prompt to both.
Perplexity
Sonar Pro
Note: Sonar Pro pricing includes Perplexity search pricing.
- Input / 1M
- $3
- Output / 1M
- $15
- Context
- 200K
Mistral
Mixtral 8x22B Instruct
Mistral's official instruct fine-tuned version of [Mixtral 8x22B](/models/mistralai/mixtral-8x22b). It uses 39B active parameters out of 141B, offering unparalleled cost efficiency for its size.
- Input / 1M
- $2
- Output / 1M
- $6
- Context
- 66K
At a glance
Quick verdict
How the two models stack up on the things people ask about most.
Lower price
Mixtral 8x22B Instruct
1.9x cheaper for a typical chat
Higher intelligence score
Sonar Pro
7.6 vs 5.7 on Artificial Analysis
Larger context window
Sonar Pro
200K vs 66K tokens
Newer release
Sonar Pro
Released March 7, 2025
Benchmarks
Benchmark scores
Independent scores from Artificial Analysis. Higher is better.
Intelligence index
Sonar Pro7.6Mixtral 8x22B Instruct5.7Coding index
Sonar ProNot availableMixtral 8x22B InstructNot availableAgentic index
Sonar ProNot availableMixtral 8x22B InstructNot availablePricing
Sonar Pro vs Mixtral 8x22B Instruct API pricing
Per-token API rates. Cheaper option highlighted.
| Metric | Sonar Pro | Mixtral 8x22B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Input tokensPer 1M tokens | $3 | $2 |
| Output tokensPer 1M tokens | $15 | $6 |
| Cached input (read)Per 1M tokens | Not available | $0.20 |
| Cache writePer 1M tokens | Not available | Not available |
| Web searchPer request | $0.005 | Not available |
What it costs in practice
Estimated cost per 1,000 requests at standard rates. Coding and long-document figures also show the cost when the input is already cached.
Chat message
2K in, 500 out
Sonar Pro$13.50Mixtral 8x22B Instruct$7Coding task
30K in, 4K out
Sonar Pro$150Mixtral 8x22B Instruct$84$30 cachedLong document summary
150K in, 2K out
Sonar Pro$480Mixtral 8x22B Instruct$312$42 cachedSpecs
Context window and capabilities
How much each model can read, how much it can write, and what it accepts as input.
| Metric | Sonar Pro | Mixtral 8x22B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Context window | 200K tokens | 66K tokens |
| Max output | 8K tokens | 52K tokens |
| Input types | Image, Text | File, Text |
| Output types | Text | Text |
| Reasoning effort levels | Not available | Not available |
| Default reasoning effort | Not available | Not available |
| Release date | March 7, 2025 | April 17, 2024 |
Features
Supported features
API features available for each model.
| Metric | Sonar Pro | Mixtral 8x22B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Tool calling | Not supported | Supported |
| Structured outputs | Not supported | Supported |
| JSON mode | Not supported | Supported |
| Reasoning | Not supported | Not supported |
| Temperature | Supported | Supported |
| Stop sequences | Not supported | Supported |
| Deterministic seed | Not supported | Supported |
| Verbosity control | Not supported | Not supported |
Keep exploring
More on these models
Other head-to-heads, the full model page, and the alternatives list for each model.
Mixtral 8x22B InstructView full model details- Mixtral 8x22B Instruct vs Mistral Medium 3.1
- Mixtral 8x22B Instruct vs Mistral Medium 3
- Mixtral 8x22B Instruct vs Devstral 2 2512
- Mixtral 8x22B Instruct vs GPT-4o (2024-11-20)
- Mixtral 8x22B Instruct vs GPT-4o (2024-08-06)
- Mixtral 8x22B Instruct vs Mistral Large 2407
- Mixtral 8x22B Instruct vs Hermes 4 405B
- Mixtral 8x22B Instruct vs GPT-4o (2024-05-13)
- Mixtral 8x22B Instruct vs Nova Pro 1.0
- Mixtral 8x22B Instruct vs GPT-4 Turbo
- Mixtral 8x22B Instruct vs Mistral Large
Our take
Mixtral 8x22B Instruct is 1.9x cheaper for a typical chat. Sonar Pro scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (7.6 vs 5.7). Sonar Pro has the larger context window (200K vs 66K tokens). The right pick depends on your workload, so the quickest way to settle it is to send the same prompt to both and compare.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Is Sonar Pro or Mixtral 8x22B Instruct cheaper?
Mixtral 8x22B Instruct is cheaper for a typical chat (2K input tokens and 500 output tokens). Mixtral 8x22B Instruct costs $2 per 1M input tokens and $6 per 1M output tokens, while Sonar Pro costs $3 per 1M input tokens and $15 per 1M output tokens.
Which has a bigger context window, Sonar Pro or Mixtral 8x22B Instruct?
Sonar Pro supports up to 200K tokens of context, compared with 66K for Mixtral 8x22B Instruct.
Is Sonar Pro smarter than Mixtral 8x22B Instruct?
On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, Sonar Pro scores 7.6 and Mixtral 8x22B Instruct scores 5.7, putting Sonar Pro ahead. Benchmarks don't capture everything, so the best test is running your own prompts through both.
Can I use Sonar Pro and Mixtral 8x22B Instruct at the same time?
Yes. Shortcut Chat sends one prompt to multiple models at once, so you can see Sonar Pro and Mixtral 8x22B Instruct answer side by side and keep the better response.
Why choose? Ask both.
Send one prompt to Sonar Pro and Mixtral 8x22B Instruct at the same time. Compare the answers side by side and keep the best one.