MaskedInput widget conflict with Model attribute

Yii 2.0 General Discussions
1

I have a number attribute

[['UnitPrice'], 'number'],

and I’m trying to format it using the MaskedInput widget

$form->field($model, 'UnitPrice',
                    [
                        'template' => '<div class="col-sm-2">{label}</div><div class="col-sm-2">{input}{error}</div>',
                        'labelOptions' => [
                            'class'=>'control-label'
                        ]
                    ])
	    			->textInput(['maxlength' => true])
                    ->widget(\yii\widgets\MaskedInput::className(), [
                            'options' => ['class' => 'form-control text-right', 'onchange' => 'js:recalcSubTotal();'],
                            'clientOptions' => [
                                'alias' => 'decimal',
                                'digits' => 2,
                                'digitsOptional' => false,
                                'radixPoint' => '.',
                                'groupSeparator' => ',',
                                'autoGroup' => true,
                                'removeMaskOnSubmit' => true,
                                'allowMinus' => false,
                                'min' => '0',
                                'max' => '99999.99',
                                // 'numericInput' => true,
                            ],
                        ]
                    );

My issue is that when I input a number and it gets nicely formatted, Yii2 report an error to the user “Unit Price must be a number.”.

What is the proper way of getting the two to play nice.

Is switching the attribute to String the only answer?