# Perplexity Sonar API: Research Agents as a Service

> Perplexity launches Sonar API, packaging their research agent capabilities as a model-like service, following a growing trend of agent-based workflows behind APIs.

By [Ryan Porter](https://anth.us/ryan) · Published 2025-01-21

Canonical: https://anth.us/articles/perplexity-sonar-api/

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[Perplexity's new Sonar API](https://sonar.perplexity.ai/) exposes their research agent capabilities through a standard model-like interface. The service joins OpenAI's o1 in a growing category of agent-based systems packaged as simple API endpoints.

Under the hood, both Sonar and o1 run complex multi-model orchestration workflows. Yet they present as traditional model APIs, abstracting away the complexity of agent systems that decompose and execute multi-step tasks.

## Technical Details

The API accepts natural language queries and handles:
- Task decomposition
- Multi-step research execution
- Source retrieval and citation
- Response synthesis

## Pricing

Perplexity's [pricing](https://docs.perplexity.ai/guides/pricing) reflects the computational overhead of running agent workflows. Like o1, Sonar commands higher rates than standard LLM APIs due to the multiple model calls and orchestration required per request.

## Engineering Impact

Rather than building orchestration from scratch, teams can now access production-ready agent capabilities through familiar REST interfaces.