Sonar Deep Research vs gpt-oss-20b: pricing comparison
gpt-oss-20b is the cheaper option at $0.02/$0.09 per 1M input/output tokens — Sonar Deep Research ($2/$8) costs about 111x more per input token. Full spec-by-spec breakdown below.
| Sonar Deep Research | gpt-oss-20b | |
|---|---|---|
| Input /1M tokens | $2 | $0.02 |
| Output /1M tokens | $8 | $0.09 |
| Cache read /1M | — | $0.01 |
| Context window | 128K | 131K |
| Provider | Perplexity | OpenAI |
| Vision input | No | No |
| Released | Mar 2025 | Aug 2025 |
Real workload costs: Sonar Deep Research vs gpt-oss-20b
Cost per single request at common token profiles — the cheapest model for each workload is highlighted.
| Workload | Tokens (in / out) | Sonar Deep Research | gpt-oss-20b |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chatbot message | 500 / 300 | $0.0034 | <$0.0001 |
| RAG query with context | 4,000 / 500 | $0.01 | $0.0001 |
| Document summarization | 20,000 / 1,000 | $0.05 | $0.0004 |
| Agent coding session | 100,000 / 5,000 | $0.24 | $0.0022 |
Frequently asked questions
Which is cheaper: Sonar Deep Research vs gpt-oss-20b?
gpt-oss-20b is the cheapest on input tokens at $0.02 per 1M, and gpt-oss-20b is cheapest on output at $0.09 per 1M. Sonar Deep Research costs about 111x more per input token than gpt-oss-20b.
How much does Sonar Deep Research cost per 1M tokens?
Sonar Deep Research costs $2 per 1M input tokens and $8 per 1M output tokens on the Perplexity API, with a 128K-token context window.
How much does gpt-oss-20b cost per 1M tokens?
gpt-oss-20b costs $0.02 per 1M input tokens and $0.09 per 1M output tokens on the OpenAI API, with a 131K-token context window.
What does a typical request cost on Sonar Deep Research vs gpt-oss-20b?
For a typical request with 2,000 input and 500 output tokens: Sonar Deep Research costs $0.0080, gpt-oss-20b costs <$0.0001. At 1,000 requests/day for a month that is $240 for Sonar Deep Research vs $2.43 for gpt-oss-20b.
Estimate your own workload with the per-model calculators (Sonar Deep Research, gpt-oss-20b), browse all current prices on the live model pricing dashboard, or run these models head-to-head on a real prompt (free account required). Prices may differ from provider list prices for batch or tiered usage.
Pricing data via the OpenRouter models API.