# Sonar

> Perplexity's live web-search model. Returns current, cited answers — grounded in a real-time search of the web. Bills a small per-request search fee on top of tokens.

Human version: https://kymaapi.com/models/sonar
Live JSON: `GET https://kymaapi.com/v1/models` (no auth required)

## Facts

- **Model ID**: `sonar` — pass this as `model` in the request body
- **Creator**: Perplexity
- **Released**: 2025-02-19
- **Context window**: 127K tokens
- **Max output**: 4K tokens per response — a hard ceiling, not a default
- **Price**: $1.35 in / $1.35 out per 1M, cached input 10%
- **Capabilities**: vision, caching
- **Alias**: `search` resolves to this model

## Call it

```bash
curl https://kymaapi.com/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $KYMA_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"model": "sonar", "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}]}'
```

## Positioning

Perplexity's Sonar is a web-grounded language model built for applications that require current, cited information. Reach for it when your workflow depends on live search results rather than static training data.

## About

Sonar integrates real-time web search into its generation process, returning answers grounded in current sources along with citations. It accepts text and image inputs, but outputs text only. The model operates with a 127,072-token context window and caps output at 4,096 tokens.

On Kyma, you can call this model using the search alias. It supports prompt caching, which bills repeated prefixes at 10% of the standard input rate. Requests route through automatic failover, and you can verify exact routing and cost in the usage.cost field and X-Kyma-Model response header. Each request incurs a small per-request search fee on top of standard token billing.

The model does not support tool calling, structured outputs, or explicit reasoning traces. It is optimized for direct, cited answers rather than complex multi-step agentic workflows or long-form generation beyond its output limit.

## Use cases

- **Live Event Tracking** — Fetches current developments and cites sources automatically.
- **Technical Research** — Answers engineering questions using up-to-date documentation.
- **Content Drafting** — Generates articles and summaries grounded in recent web data.
- **Visual Analysis** — Processes uploaded images alongside live web queries for context.

## Not ideal for

Avoid this model for agentic workflows requiring tool use, structured JSON outputs, or long-form generation exceeding 4,096 tokens.

## Pick something else when

- You need tool calling or structured JSON outputs → `qwen-3.7-max`
- You need long-form generation beyond 4,096 tokens → `deepseek-v4-pro`
- You need explicit chain-of-thought reasoning traces → `deepseek-r1`

## See also

- All models: https://kymaapi.com/models.md
- Pricing: https://kymaapi.com/pricing.md
- Other models by Perplexity: https://kymaapi.com/models?q=Perplexity