Sonar vs DeepSeek-V3.2
Side-by-side specs, pricing and capabilities. Both models run on Clade under one subscription, so you can switch between them in the same conversation.
Sonar comes from Perplexity and DeepSeek-V3.2 from DeepSeek. The practical difference for most people is context, price, and which input types each one accepts.
DeepSeek-V3.2 is the cheaper of the two on input tokens at $0.03 / 1M tokens.
| Specification | Sonar | DeepSeek-V3.2 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Perplexity | DeepSeek |
| Model ID | sonar | deepseek-chat |
| Context window | 128K | 128K |
| Max output | — | 8K |
| Input price | $1.00 / 1M tokens | $0.03 / 1M tokens |
| Output price | $1.00 / 1M tokens | $0.42 / 1M tokens |
| Knowledge cutoff | — | — |
| Input types | text, image, file | text |
| Output types | text | text |
| Plan | Free | Free |
Which should you use?
Pick DeepSeek-V3.2 when…
- Cost matters: input runs at $0.03 / 1M tokens versus $1.00 / 1M tokens.
- You want longer single responses — up to 8K output tokens.
Related comparisons
Try both on Clade
You do not have to choose. One Clade subscription gives you Sonar, DeepSeek-V3.2, and every other model on the platform.