Command A API pricing
Cohere · Mid-range price tier · CC-BY-NC-4.0 · released 2025-03. Prices in USD per 1 million tokens. Data snapshot: 2026-11-12.
A support ticket workload of 100K requests a month costs $875.00 on Command A; the next cheaper model in the Mid-range price tier for this workload, GLM 5.3 Prime, does it for $860.00. Command A has held the same list price since 2026-08-15 and is the 100th cheapest of 113 models in the Mid-range price tier. Only one host, Cohere, sells it, so there is no second price to shop. It is rated a stable release but does not meet all four criteria of the FinOps Friendly badge.
- Input: $2.50 per 1M tokens
- Output: $10.00 per 1M tokens
- Batch API (in/out): Not published
- Prompt-cache read: Not published
- Context window: 256K tokens
- Arena ELO: 1331 as of 2026-11-08
Available on
Direct API, AWS Bedrock, Azure AI Foundry, OpenRouter
Curated by hand; check with the provider before committing.
Market position
On blended price ($7.75 per 1M tokens at 30% input, 70% output) it is cheaper than 9% of models in the Mid-range price tier: 100th cheapest of 113, tied with 3 others. Across every price tier it is cheaper than 13% of priced text models in the catalogue: 260th cheapest of 303, tied with 3 others. Its Arena ELO of 1331 ranks 131st of the 160 models that carry one, above 18% of them. With an Arena score of 1331, Command A sits below OptimNow's lowest working quality threshold, Standard (Arena 1420+), so the quality-bar method would not shortlist it for any of the 8 use cases the table prices. Each threshold is a distance below the best ranked model, which scores 1530 on Arena scores as of 8 Nov 2026.
Licence, size and capabilities
Command A is open weights, which is not the same as open source: the weights are published, but under CC-BY-NC-4.0, a licence that restricts some uses. Read it before self-hosting commercially. Its published size is 111B parameters. Listed capabilities: Text, Agents. Filling its 256K context window once costs $0.64 in input tokens at list price.
Pricing by host
A host is a company that runs the model and sells it by the token: the model maker, a cloud platform like Amazon Bedrock, Azure or Vertex, or an independent host. One model, several hosts, and often several prices. This model is sold by 1 host. The price we quote elsewhere on this page is marked. We quote one host's rate so that models stay comparable; it is not a recommendation to buy there.
Cohere is the only host with a published rate, $2.50 input / $10.00 output per 1M tokens, which is the price we quote.
| Host | Input $/1M | Output $/1M |
|---|---|---|
| Cohere (model maker, price we quote) | $2.50 | $10.00 |
List prices as published on 2026-11-12, via OpenRouter. Negotiated rates, committed-use discounts and provisioned capacity are not shown.
Monthly cost at 100K requests, by business use case
From the after-discounts figure (prompt caching on the cached input share, batch API for async workloads, only where Cohere publishes those rates), which assumes you implement both, to the list price. One figure means no discount is published.
| Use case | Tokens (in/out) | Monthly (after discounts – list) |
|---|---|---|
| Support Ticket | 1,500 / 500 | $875 |
| Knowledge Q&A | 2,000 / 800 | $1.3K |
| Meeting Summary | 10,000 / 1,200 | $3.7K |
| Marketing Content | 2,500 / 1,800 | $2.4K |
| Coding Task | 3,000 / 2,000 | $2.8K |
| Invoice Processing | 1,500 / 600 | $975 |
| Call Summary | 2,000 / 700 | $1.2K |
| Agent Workflow | 6,000 / 3,000 | $4.5K |
Price history
Command A has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $2.50 input / $10.00 output per 1M tokens. No list price change since tracking began on 2026-08-15. Last checked against the 2026-11-12 snapshot.
Alternatives to Command A
4 of the 4 comparable models below cost less than Command A: GPT-5 Mini undercuts it by 81%, and scores 43 Arena points higher.
- Next cheaper model in the Mid-range price tier: Claude Sonnet 5 (Anthropic) at $7.60 blended, 2% less.
- Next more expensive: Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview (Google) at $9.00 blended, 16% more.
The nearest models in the Mid-range price tier on Arena ELO, each with its blended price and score difference against Command A.
- Nova 2 Lite (Amazon): $0.30 in / $2.50 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1362 (76% cheaper, 31 ELO points higher)
- Mistral Medium 3 (Mistral): $0.40 in / $2.00 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1370 (80% cheaper, 39 ELO points higher)
- Kimi K2 0711 (Moonshot): $0.57 in / $2.30 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1371 (77% cheaper, 40 ELO points higher)
- GPT-5 Mini (OpenAI): $0.25 in / $2.00 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1374 (81% cheaper, 43 ELO points higher)
- Cheapest within 15 Arena points: Gemma 3 12B (Google), 98% cheaper, 3 ELO points higher, out of 11 models in that band.
- Highest Arena ELO within 20% of this price: Gemini 4 Argon (Google), 2% cheaper, 199 ELO points higher, out of 14 models in that price band.
Other models from Cohere
Cohere has 4 other models in the catalogue. Prices per 1M tokens, input then output.
- Command R7B (12-2024): $0.0375 / $0.15
- Command R (08-2024): $0.15 / $0.60
- Command A+: $0.30 / $1.50
- Command R+ (08-2024): $2.50 / $10.00
All 5 Cohere models and prices
Common questions about Command A pricing
- How much does Command A cost?
- Command A costs $2.50 per 1M input tokens and $10.00 per 1M output tokens. That is the model maker's own rate (Cohere). Prices as listed on 2026-11-12.
- Which host is cheapest for Command A?
- Cohere is the only host with a published rate, $2.50 input / $10.00 output per 1M tokens, which is the price we quote. Host rates as listed on 2026-11-12.
- Does Command A offer batch or cached pricing?
- No. Neither a batch rate nor a prompt-cache rate is published for Command A as of 2026-11-12.
- What would Command A cost per month?
- With the Support Ticket profile (1,500 input and 500 output tokens per request), 100,000 requests a month cost about $875 on Command A at the list price quoted on 2026-11-12.
- Can Command A be self-hosted?
- Yes, within the terms of its licence. Command A is open weights, which is not the same as open source: the weights are published, but under CC-BY-NC-4.0, a licence that restricts some uses. Read it before self-hosting commercially.
- Has the price of Command A changed?
- Command A has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $2.50 input / $10.00 output per 1M tokens. No list price change since tracking began on 2026-08-15. Last checked against the 2026-11-12 snapshot.
Its weights are published, which changes what you may run yourself: the cost gap between open weights and proprietary APIs.
These are list prices. Your real cost also depends on caching and batching, negotiated discounts, marketplace agreements, and the contracts you already have. OptimNow audits exactly that.
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