Sonar vs Qwen3.6 27B

Sonar at $1.15 in and $1.15 out and Qwen3.6 27B at $0.690 in and $4.14 out — per million tokens, from the same wallet.

Sonar

Perplexity

0.67¢

for a client proposal

$1.15 in · $1.15 out / 1M

127K context · released January 2025

Full page →

Qwen3.6 27B

Qwen

0.68¢

for a client proposal

$0.690 in · $4.14 out / 1M

262K context · released 3 months ago

Full page →

Asking all both at once — identical prompt, identical context — costs about 1.3¢ for a typical client proposal.

At a glance

Cheapest input: Qwen3.6 27B at $0.690 per million tokens.
Cheapest output: Sonar at $1.15 per million tokens.
Largest context: Qwen3.6 27B at 262K tokens — about 370 pages.

Cost per task

Estimated totals at the rates above. Solid bar is input, lighter bar is output.

Quick code fix

2K in · 500 out

Sonar

0.29¢

Qwen3.6 27B

0.34¢

Draft a client proposal from notes

5K in · 800 out

Sonar

0.67¢

Qwen3.6 27B

0.68¢

Context-heavy session (Alyph workspace)

155K in · 4K out

Sonar

needs 155K ctx

Qwen3.6 27B

$0.12

Analyze a 50-page legal contract

35K in · 1K out

Sonar

4.1¢

Qwen3.6 27B

2.8¢

Large architecture refactor

250K in · 3K out

Sonar

needs 250K ctx

Qwen3.6 27B

$0.18

Solid part of each bar is input tokens, the lighter part is output. Models that don’t fit a task are marked instead of priced.

Cost vs Token Amount

Drag the slider to adjust the split between input and output workload.

80% Input20% Output

Sonar

Qwen3.6 27B

Adjust the ratio slider to change how output tokens influence the final price for equivalent workloads.

Pricing

Sonar

Qwen3.6 27B

Input / 1M tokens

$1.15

$0.690

Output / 1M tokens

$1.15

$4.14

Cached input / 1M

—

$0.138

Web search

0.57¢ / search

—

Specs

Sonar

Qwen3.6 27B

Provider

Perplexity

Qwen

Released

January 2025

3 months ago

Context window

127K

262K

Max output

—

262K

Input

Text and Images

Text, Images, and Video

Output

Text

Reasoning

Answers directly

Shows its thinking

Knowledge cutoff

—

Try it with real numbers

2K tokens in · 500 tokens out.

Sonar

Perplexity

0.29¢

for this task

80% input · 20% output

Full pricing →

Qwen3.6 27B

Qwen

0.34¢

for this task

40% input · 60% output

Full pricing →

All 2, same prompt and context: 0.63¢. That is the entire cost of the comparison.

Your $5 welcome credit covers about 790 of these.

Which should you pick?

For long documents, Qwen3.6 27B has the largest context window here — 262K tokens.

On price, Sonar is the cheapest of the two on a typical task, at about 0.67¢.

If you want to watch the model think, Qwen3.6 27B shows reasoning; the other answers directly.

Or don’t pick. Send the identical prompt to all both, read the answers side by side, and keep the winner. How to run a fair bake-off →

Sonar pricing →Qwen3.6 27B pricing →Add Lyria 3 Clip Preview Add Grok 4.20

Questions, answered

Which is cheaper, Sonar or Qwen3.6 27B?

On a typical client proposal (5K tokens in, 800 out): Sonar at 0.67¢; Qwen3.6 27B at 0.68¢. Long prompts can change the order when long-context rates apply.

Which has the largest context window?

Qwen3.6 27B — 262K tokens, about 370 pages.

Can I run Sonar and Qwen3.6 27B side by side on Alyph?

Yes — that is what Alyph is built for: the identical prompt with identical context to all 2, answers rendered side by side, billed from one wallet. This exact combination costs about 1.3¢ for a typical task.

Ask both at once

Identical prompt, identical context, answers side by side — about 1.3¢ for a typical client proposal. Free to start, with $5 of credit.