# PerplexityPro response vs SonarPro response

**URL:** <https://community.perplexity.ai/t/perplexitypro-response-vs-sonarpro-response/1496>\
**Category:** Bug Reports\
**Created:** [September 19, 2025, 11:29am UTC](https://community.perplexity.ai/t/perplexitypro-response-vs-sonarpro-response/1496 "2025-09-19T11:29:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Aishwarya\_Sharma](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/community.perplexity.ai/aishwarya_sharma/32/521_2.png) [@Aishwarya\_Sharma](https://community.perplexity.ai/u/Aishwarya_Sharma)\
**Post date:** [September 19, 2025, 11:29am UTC](https://community.perplexity.ai/t/perplexitypro-response-vs-sonarpro-response/1496/1 "2025-09-19T11:29:37Z")

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## 🐛 Describe the Bug

The responses I am getting from Sonar Pro are extremely low quality and very different from PerplexityPro for the exact same question.

## ✅ Expected Behavior

Similar to same answers

## ❌ Actual Behavior

I understand that due to non-deterministic nature of LLM, answers may not be exact same. But the answers I am receiving are way off.

## 🔄 Steps to Reproduce

1. Prompt - “List companies or startups that help users discover events or meet new people in india?”
2. Check answer in perplexity Pro on the perplexity.ai vs SonarPro API

##

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**Author:** ![Kesku](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/community.perplexity.ai/kesku/32/898_2.png) [@Kesku](https://community.perplexity.ai/u/Kesku)\
**Post date:** [April 7, 2026, 2:41pm UTC](https://community.perplexity.ai/t/perplexitypro-response-vs-sonarpro-response/1496/2 "2026-04-07T14:41:38Z")

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Hey @Aishwarya_Sharma — the quality difference you are seeing between Perplexity Pro (the web product) and the `sonar-pro` API is expected, not a bug.

Perplexity Pro in the browser runs a **multi-step Pro Search** pipeline — multiple searches, page fetching, cross-referencing, and synthesis. A standard `sonar-pro` API call does a single-step search, which produces faster but less thorough results.

To get quality closer to the web experience, use the **Agent API** with the `pro-search` preset:

```python
from perplexity import Perplexity

client = Perplexity()
response = client.responses.create(
    preset="pro-search",
    input="Your question here"
)
print(response.output_text)

```

This runs the same multi-step reasoning pipeline that powers the web product. You can also use `sonar-pro` with `search_type="pro"` and `stream=True` if you prefer the Sonar API format.

The tradeoff is cost — Pro Search uses more compute and web searches, so it is pricier per request. For simple factual queries, standard `sonar-pro` is often sufficient. For research-grade answers, the `pro-search` preset is the way to go.

Docs: [Agent API Presets](https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/agent-api/presets) | [Pro Search](https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/sonar/pro-search/quickstart)