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GPT-4.1 vs Sonar Reasoning Pro: API price, context & features · api14

OpenAI: GPT-4.1 vs Perplexity: Sonar Reasoning Pro

A side-by-side comparison of OpenAI: GPT-4.1 ($7.00 / 1M tokens) and Perplexity: Sonar Reasoning Pro ($7.00 / 1M tokens) using current USD prices and capabilities from the api14 catalog. Both run through the same OpenAI-compatible API.

Specifications

	OpenAI: GPT-4.1	Perplexity: Sonar Reasoning Pro
Provider	OpenAI	Perplexity
Input	$7.00 / 1M tokens	$7.00 / 1M tokens
Output	$28.00 / 1M tokens	$28.00 / 1M tokens
Cache read	$1.75 / 1M tokens	-
Web search	$35.00 / 1K searches	$17.50 / 1K searches
Context window	1,047,576	128,000
Max output	32,768	115,200
Input	image, text, file	text, image
Output	text	text
Tool calling
Structured output
Reasoning control
Added	Apr 14, 2025	Mar 7, 2025

Key differences

Both have about the same input price.
OpenAI: GPT-4.1 reads 8.2× more context (1,047,576 tokens).
Only OpenAI: GPT-4.1 supports tool calling.
Only OpenAI: GPT-4.1 supports structured JSON output.
Only Perplexity: Sonar Reasoning Pro supports reasoning effort control.
A request with 1,000 input and 500 output tokens costs $0.02 with OpenAI: GPT-4.1 and $0.02 with Perplexity: Sonar Reasoning Pro.

In depth

OpenAI: GPT-4.1 is made by OpenAI and is a text model that also accepts image and file input. Perplexity: Sonar Reasoning Pro is made by Perplexity and is a text model that accepts text and image input. Both return text output, so neither produces images or audio. The two come from different vendors with different strengths, and on api14 you reach both through the same interface.

The clearest split is context and tooling. GPT-4.1 has a much larger context window, over a million tokens, against 128,000 for Sonar Reasoning Pro, so long documents, big codebases or lengthy transcripts fit far more comfortably in GPT-4.1. GPT-4.1 is also the one that supports tools and structured outputs, which matters if you need function calling or a strict JSON shape from the response. Sonar Reasoning Pro is the one built around reasoning, and it exposes reasoning controls plus web search options, so it is aimed at problems where the model should think step by step and can pull in fresh web results. On price the two are about the same for both input and output, so cost is not the deciding factor here.

For practical work, pick GPT-4.1 when your task is grounded in a large amount of supplied material: summarizing a long report, answering questions over a big file, refactoring across many source files, or anything that needs tool calls or a guaranteed response schema. Pick Sonar Reasoning Pro when the task is more about working through a problem than about holding a lot of text in view: multi step analysis, math or logic style questions, or questions that benefit from a web search folded into the reasoning. If you are unsure, the context limit and the tool support are usually the fastest way to decide.

Calling either model through api14 works the same way because the API is OpenAI compatible. You send a chat completions request to the same endpoint with the same authentication, and the only thing you change is the model id: use openai/gpt-4.1 for GPT-4.1 and perplexity/sonar-reasoning-pro for Sonar Reasoning Pro. Your request and response handling code stays identical, so switching between them is a one line change and you can route different requests to different models without rewriting your client.

There are still cases where the other model wins. If you need reasoning behavior and web search options, Sonar Reasoning Pro is the better pick even though GPT-4.1 has the larger context and the tool support, because those reasoning and search parameters are specific to it. Conversely, if you need to pass a file as input, GPT-4.1 accepts files while Sonar Reasoning Pro does not, so that alone can settle the choice.

Switch with one string

Both models use the same endpoint and request shape. Change the model value from "openai/gpt-4.1" to "perplexity/sonar-reasoning-pro" and prompts, streaming and tools keep working.

OpenAI: GPT-4.1 details & playground →Perplexity: Sonar Reasoning Pro details & playground →

import OpenAI from "openai";

const client = new OpenAI({
  baseURL: "https://api14.com/api/v1",
  apiKey: process.env.API14_API_KEY,
});

const result = await client.chat.completions.create({
  "model": "perplexity/sonar-reasoning-pro",
  "messages": [
    {
      "role": "user",
      "content": "Explain vector databases in two sentences."
    }
  ]
});
console.log(result.choices[0].message.content);

OpenAI: GPT-4.1 vs Perplexity: Sonar Reasoning Pro

Specifications

Key differences

In depth

Switch with one string

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