What reasoning levels does the qwen 3.8 flash...

------ Chat Conversation ------

User: what reasoning levels does the qwen 3.8 flash model support?

Assistant: Qwen 3.8 Flash supports four reasoning effort levels: none, low, medium, and xhigh (with "high" as an alias for "xhigh"). news.ycombinator.com Each level maps to a system-prompt instruction controlling how long the model reasons before responding.

Sources:
- Qwen3.8-Flash-Next | Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49448210 (fetched/scraped page)

User: what are Perplexity’s leading models right now? How do they compare lately?

Assistant: Perplexity's current API lineup is four Sonar tiers:

| Model | $/1M in / out | Distinguishing feature |
|---|---|---|
| Sonar | $1.00 / $1.00 | Fastest, cheapest retrieval |
| Sonar Pro | $3.00 / $15.00 | Larger context; Pro Search adds multi-step reasoning |
| Sonar Reasoning Pro | $2.00 / $8.00 | Structured multi-step analysis; per-request fee like Sonar/Pro |
| Sonar Deep Research | $2.00 / $8.00 + per-search fees | Autonomous multi-query research; separate billing structure |

aipricing.guru docs.perplexity.ai

How they compare lately:

- Sonar Pro Search (2026) layers automated tool usage and multi-step web fetching on top of Sonar Pro, billed at $14–$22 per 1,000 queries depending on search depth. cloudzero.com docs.perplexity.ai
- Sonar Reasoning Pro shares the per-request search-fee structure with Sonar and Sonar Pro ($5–$14 per 1,000 requests by search context size), distinguishing it from Deep Research, which drops the per-request fee for a citation/reasoning-token + per-1,000-searches model. docs.perplexity.ai spheron.network
- Agent API (replacing Sonar Chat Completions, sunset Sept 27 2026) routes to OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI, Z.AI, Moonshot AI, and NVIDIA models at direct provider rates with no markup. docs.perplexity.ai
- Citation tokens were dropped for Sonar and Sonar Pro this year; they now apply only to Deep Research. cloudzero.com

Working notes:
- Current Perplexity AI model lineup (2026), their capabilities, pricing, and recent comparisons
- Official docs on current model lineup and Agent API migration
- Detailed pricing and model comparison
- Side-by-side model comparison with specs
- Very recent (today) article about Perplexity using GPT-6 Astra
- Current API pricing for all Sonar models

Sources:
- Perplexity API Pricing In 2026: Models, Costs, And Optimization Tips: https://www.cloudzero.com/blog/perplexity-api-pricing/ (fetched/scraped page)
- Perplexity API Pricing (May 2026) — Sonar Online Models | AI Pricing Guru: https://www.aipricing.guru/perplexity-pricing/ (fetched/scraped page)
- Pricing - Perplexity: https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/getting-started/pricing (fetched/scraped page)
- Meet New Sonar: A Blazing Fast Model Optimized for Perplexity Search: https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/blog/meet-new-sonar (fetched/scraped page)
- Perplexity Pricing: Plans for Individuals and Enterprise: https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/pricing (fetched/scraped page)
- Perplexity Sonar API Pricing vs Self-Hosted RAG: Cost and Privacy (2026) | Spheron Blog: https://www.spheron.network/blog/perplexity-sonar-api-pricing-vs-self-hosted-rag/ (fetched/scraped page)
- Sonar Reasoning Pro - Perplexity: https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/sonar/models/sonar-reasoning-pro (fetched/scraped page)
- Perplexity Pricing in 2026 for Individuals, Orgs & Developers: https://www.finout.io/blog/perplexity-pricing-in-2026 (fetched/scraped page)
- Migrate from Sonar to the Agent API: https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/agent-api/migrate-from-sonar/overview (search result only; fetch failed)
- Meet New Sonar : r/perplexity_ai: https://www.reddit.com/r/perplexity_ai/comments/1in6y34/meet_new_sonar/ (search result only)
- Perplexity AI Features and Capabilities in 2026: https://www.secondtalent.com/resources/perplexity-ai-features-capabilities-2026/ (search result only)
- Perplexity API Models: Sonar vs Sonar Pro vs Sonar Reasoning – WiseChecker: https://wisechecker.com/perplexity-api-models-sonar-sonar-pro-sonar-reasoning/ (search result only; fetch failed)
- Perplexity AI Available Models: All Supported Models, Version Differences, Capabilities Comparison, And Access Requirements: https://www.datastudios.org/post/perplexity-ai-available-models-all-supported-models-version-differences-capabilities-comparison (search result only)
- Sonar Pro vs Sonar Reasoning Pro – Specs, Pricing & Capabilities: https://opentools.ai/compare/llms/sonar-pro-vs-sonar-reasoning-pro (search result only)
- Sonar Pro vs Sonar Reasoning Pro: AI Model Comparison · Model Markets: https://modelmarkets.ai/compare/sonar-pro-vs-sonar-reasoning-pro (search result only)
- Perplexity trusts GPT-6 Astra with end-to-end systems | OpenAI: https://openai.com/index/perplexity-improving-accuracy-with-astra/ (search result only; fetch failed)
- Perplexity Goes Multi-Model: What It Means for AI Answers — reconnAI Blog: https://reconn-ai.com/news/perplexity-multi-model-ai-visibility/ (search result only)
- Perplexity Launches Hybrid Compute on Mac With Local Privacy Gate – Unite.AI: https://www.unite.ai/perplexity-launches-hybrid-compute-on-mac-with-local-privacy-gate/ (search result only)
- We've upgraded Deep Research in Perplexity.: https://www.reddit.com/r/perplexity_ai/comments/1qvxx6s/weve_upgraded_deep_research_in_perplexity/ (search result only; fetch failed)
- "We've upgraded Deep Research in Perplexity. ...: https://x.com/perplexity_ai/status/2019126571521761450 (search result only)
- Perplexity AI 2026: Models, Features, Pricing, and Citation ...: https://suprmind.ai/hub/perplexity/ (search result only)
- Evaluating Deep Research Performance in the Wild with ...: https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/blog/evaluating-deep-research-performance-in-the-wild-with-the-draco-benchmark (search result only; fetch failed)
- Sonar Pro Search - API Pricing & Providers: https://openrouter.ai/perplexity/sonar-pro-search (search result only)
- Ridiculous API cost of Perplexity AI : r/perplexity_ai: https://www.reddit.com/r/perplexity_ai/comments/1jbky3f/ridiculous_api_cost_of_perplexity_ai/ (search result only)
- Improved Sonar Models: Industry Leading Performance at ...: https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/blog/new-sonar-search-modes-outperform-openai-in-cost-and-performance (search result only)
- PERPLEXITY sonar Pricing Calculator | API Cost Estimation: https://www.helicone.ai/llm-cost/provider/perplexity/model/sonar (search result only)

User: What is the cost per token of the Perplexity Agent API? and does it offer cached token pricing as well?

Assistant: The Agent API has no single rate — it bills at each third-party model's published token price with no markup (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI, Z.AI, Moonshot AI, NVIDIA). docs.perplexity.ai Yes, it offers cached-token pricing: cache reads are billed at each model's discounted cache-read rate. docs.perplexity.ai

Working notes:
- Find the exact per-token pricing for the Perplexity Agent API and whether it offers cached/prompt-caching token pricing
- Official Perplexity pricing page — should have Agent API per-token rates and any cached token pricing
- Agent API models page — snippet mentions "Cache read ($/1M)" so this likely has the cached token pricing details
- Third-party breakdown of Perplexity API pricing including Agent API
- Another pricing reference for cross-checking Agent API rates and cached token pricing

Sources:
- Pricing - Perplexity: https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/getting-started/pricing (fetched/scraped page)
- Agent API Models - Perplexity: https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/agent-api/models (fetched/scraped page)
- Perplexity API Pricing In 2026: Models, Costs, And Optimization Tips: https://www.cloudzero.com/blog/perplexity-api-pricing/ (fetched/scraped page)
- Perplexity API Pricing (May 2026) — Sonar Online Models | AI Pricing Guru: https://www.aipricing.guru/perplexity-pricing/ (fetched/scraped page)
- Google Docs: Sign-in: https://docs.google.com/document/create?hl=en (fetched/scraped page)
- Google Docs: Online Document & PDF Editor | Google Workspace: https://workspace.google.com/products/docs/ (fetched/scraped page)
- Perplexity Pricing 2026: Plans, API Costs & Comet Guide: https://felloai.com/perplexity-pricing/ (search result only)
- Prompt Caching breakdown: Cut token spend in 2026: https://www.flexera.com/blog/ai/prompt-caching-breakdown/ (search result only)
- Ridiculous API cost of Perplexity AI : r/perplexity_ai: https://www.reddit.com/r/perplexity_ai/comments/1jbky3f/ridiculous_api_cost_of_perplexity_ai/ (search result only)
- Google Docs - App Store - Apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/google-docs/id842842640 (search result only)
- Google Docs - Apps on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.docs.editors.docs&hl=en_US (search result only)
- Google Docs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Docs (search result only)
- Perplexity Sonar API Pricing vs Self-Hosted RAG: https://www.spheron.network/blog/perplexity-sonar-api-pricing-vs-self-hosted-rag/ (search result only)

User: Is Sonar useful at all / competitve with other models right now? For example, if I can get a model like Qwen 3.8 27b for comparable pricing on Cerebras as well, does Sonar’s benchmark status give any reasons remaining to use it today?

Assistant: Sonar (base) is deprecated; Artificial Analysis recommends Sonar Reasoning Pro instead. It scores 8 on the AA Intelligence Index (median: 7), ranked #126/2968 — above average but not a standout artificialanalysis.ai.

Its only defensible differentiator is built-in real-time web search with citations — the Search API returns ranked, region-filtered results with extracted content, something a raw model like Qwen 3.8 27B doesn't provide docs.perplexity.ai.

On price, Sonar Pro Search runs $3/$15 per M tokens plus $18 per 1K web-search calls openrouter.ai. Qwen 3.8 27B on Cerebras is $0.99/$1.49 per M tokens — roughly 3× cheaper on input and 10× on output, with far higher throughput. The research doesn't include a fetched Cerebras page for this round, so I can't cite the exact Cerebras spec page, but the pricing gap is consistent across the comparison data available.

Bottom line: If you need search-augmented answers with citations out of the box, Sonar Pro Search is the product. For general inference quality at lower cost, Qwen 3.8 27B on Cerebras is the stronger choice.

Working notes:
- Current benchmark scores and competitive positioning of Perplexity Sonar models vs Qwen 3.8 27B on Cerebras, including pricing comparison and any unique advantages Sonar retains in 2026
- Sonar benchmark scores and intelligence index
- Qwen 3.8 27B pricing on Cerebras
- Sonar Search Arena score and competitive standing
- Perplexity API pricing breakdown and per-request fees
- Qwen 3.8 27B on Cerebras community discussion and comparison

Sources:
- Sonar - Intelligence, Performance & Price Analysis | Artificial Analysis: https://artificialanalysis.ai/models/sonar (fetched/scraped page)
- Perplexity API Pricing In 2026: Models, Costs, And Optimization Tips: https://www.cloudzero.com/blog/perplexity-api-pricing/ (fetched/scraped page)
- Perplexity Search API - Perplexity: https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/search/quickstart (fetched/scraped page)
- Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-02-15 vs Sonar Pro Search - AI Model Comparison: https://openrouter.ai/compare/qwen/qwen3.5-plus-02-15/perplexity/sonar-pro-search (fetched/scraped page)
- Sonar Pro - Intelligence, Performance & Price Analysis: https://artificialanalysis.ai/models/sonar-pro (search result only)
- Perplexity: Sonar Reasoning Pro - Real Quality, Price & ...: https://www.smophy.ai/benchmark/models/sonar-reasoning-pro (search result only)
- Perplexity Sonar Dominates New Search Arena Evaluation: https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/blog/perplexity-sonar-dominates-new-search-arena-evolution (search result only; fetch failed)
- Qwen 3.8 27B available on Cerebras at 1500 tokens/s: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49554520 (search result only; fetch failed)
- Cerebras Inference tier pricing: https://www.cerebras.ai/pricing (search result only; fetch failed)
- Qwen3.8-27B Cerebras API Pricing: $0.99/$1.49: https://www.aipricing.guru/news/qwen3-8-27b-open-weights-local-ai-costs-august-2026/ (search result only)
- Cerebras Qwen 3.8 27B: 1500 tok/s, But Read This First: https://explainx.ai/blog/cerebras-qwen3-8-27b-1500-tokens-per-second-2026 (search result only)
- Qwen: Qwen3.6 Plus vs Perplexity: Sonar Pro: https://krater.ai/compare/qwen3-6-plus-vs-sonar-pro (search result only)
- Perplexity: Sonar Reasoning Pro vs. Qwen: Qwen3.7 Flash: https://llmbase.ai/compare/perplexity%2Fsonar-reasoning-pro,qwen%2Fqwen3.7-flash/ (search result only)
- Why isn't Perplexity offering open-source models like Qwen ...: https://www.reddit.com/r/perplexity_ai/comments/1nujqek/why_isnt_perplexity_offering_opensource_models/ (search result only)
- Introducing the Sonar Pro API by Perplexity: https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/blog/introducing-the-sonar-pro-api (search result only; fetch failed)
- Perplexity Sonar API Pricing vs Self-Hosted RAG: https://www.spheron.network/blog/perplexity-sonar-api-pricing-vs-self-hosted-rag/ (search result only)
- Search Arena Leaderboard is live! Two weeks after ...: https://x.com/arena/status/1952769858166505657?lang=en (search result only)
- Sonar Pro Search - API Pricing & Providers: https://openrouter.ai/perplexity/sonar-pro-search (search result only)


------ Research Draft Summary ------

# Perplexity Sonar competitiveness versus Qwen 3.8 27B (Cerebras) and API pricing

Sonar’s remaining reason to use it is built-in web-grounded completions with citations, not raw model quality or token price: Artificial Analysis treats base Sonar as deprecated and points to Sonar Reasoning Pro, while Qwen 3.8 27B on Cerebras is about $0.99/$1.49 per 1M tokens at ~1,500–1,850 tok/s without a search-context request fee. Agent API still bills third-party models at first-party rates with no markup (cache reads at each model’s cache-read rate); Sonar Chat Completions remains until 27 September 2026, and Sonar-family SKUs still add a search-context fee on top of tokens. [artificialanalysis.ai](https://artificialanalysis.ai/models/sonar) [cerebras.ai](https://www.cerebras.ai/pricing) [docs.perplexity.ai](https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/getting-started/pricing)

## When Sonar is still the product

The Sonar API is OpenAI-compatible chat completions that are web-grounded by design. [docs.perplexity.ai](https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/sonar/quickstart)

Artificial Analysis lists Sonar as a proprietary January 2025 non-reasoning model (127k context), Intelligence Index 8 (above average vs a median of 7 among comparable non-reasoning models), and marks it deprecated except for a default 10k-input workload; it recommends Sonar Reasoning Pro. [artificialanalysis.ai](https://artificialanalysis.ai/models/sonar)

A 2025 LiveBench “plot unscrambling” thread reported Sonar Pro at 73.47, which is not a current general-intelligence ranking. [reddit.com](https://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/1jhuah2/perplexity_sonar_pro_tops_livebenchs_plot/)

Perplexity’s earlier “new Sonar” (Llama 3.3 70B, search-mode training, ~1200 tok/s on Cerebras) was a consumer/Pro-app claim, not a current Agent API benchmark against Qwen 3.8 27B. [perplexity.ai](https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/blog/meet-new-sonar)

## Qwen 3.8 27B on Cerebras

Cerebras Developer Tier lists Qwen 3.8 27B at ~1,850 tok/s, $0.99/M input and $1.49/M output. [cerebras.ai](https://www.cerebras.ai/pricing)

HN reported ~1500 tok/s and compared Cerebras $1 / $1.5 to a then-best OpenRouter $0.24 / $2.55. [news.ycombinator.com](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49554520)

That stack has no Perplexity search-context fee; it is not a substitute for Perplexity’s citation pipeline unless you add your own retrieval.

## Sonar-family token plus request fees

Sonar, Sonar Pro, and Sonar Reasoning Pro bill tokens plus a per-request search-context fee (Low / Medium / High). Official examples include Sonar Pro $3/M input and $15/M output. Third-party tables list Sonar $1/$1 and Sonar Reasoning Pro / Deep Research $2/$8 per 1M. [docs.perplexity.ai](https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/getting-started/pricing) [www.spheron.network](https://www.spheron.network/blog/perplexity-sonar-api-pricing-vs-self-hosted-rag/)

Spheron’s 2026 breakdown of the search fee (per 1,000 requests):

- Sonar: $5 / $8 / $12 (Low / Medium / High)
- Sonar Pro and Sonar Reasoning Pro: $6 / $10 / $14

On short lookups that fee often dominates token cost. Sonar Deep Research uses a different mix (citation/reasoning tokens plus $5 per 1,000 searches) instead of that Low/Medium/High request table. [www.spheron.network](https://www.spheron.network/blog/perplexity-sonar-api-pricing-vs-self-hosted-rag/)

Illustrative all-in query ranges from a 2026 writeup (tokens plus fees): quick Sonar fact check ~$0.01; Sonar Pro research ~$0.01–$0.08; Deep Research ~$0.30–$1.50+. [cloudzero.com](https://www.cloudzero.com/blog/perplexity-api-pricing/)

Search API is billed per successful POST `/search` (up to five queries in one unit), not tokens. Router API is per-token at published rates with discounted cache reads and no per-request fees. [docs.perplexity.ai](https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/getting-started/pricing)

## Agent API billing (non-Sonar models)

Agent API usage is actual tokens at each provider’s published rates with no markup; rates update monthly; responses include input, output, and cache-read counts. Cache reads use the model’s discounted cache-read rate; reasoning tokens bill at the output rate. Providers include OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI, Z.AI, Moonshot AI, NVIDIA, DeepSeek, and Perplexity Sonar. [docs.perplexity.ai](https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/getting-started/pricing) [docs.perplexity.ai](https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/agent-api/models)

Optional service tiers when supported: default/auto at list price; flex at 0.5× (best-effort); priority/`fast` at 2×. Unsupported tiers are ignored. Tool costs are separate (most tools per invocation; sandbox per 20-minute session plus in-sandbox search). Effort presets: fast, low, medium, high, xhigh. Agent API uses `input` / typed `output` (Open Responses); Sonar used `messages` / `choices`. [docs.perplexity.ai](https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/agent-api/models) [docs.perplexity.ai](https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/agent-api/migrate-from-sonar/overview)

## Open questions

How Agent API effort presets map onto Sonar vs Sonar Pro vs Deep Research, and whether the consumer app’s default Sonar is still the Llama 3.3 70B Cerebras stack, is not specified in these sources.