Command R+ vs Command R
Benchmarks, API Token Pricing, Context Window & Speed Comparison
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Command R+ by Cohere and Command R by Cohere represent two of the frontier AI models analyzed in our comprehensive 2026 AI benchmark and LLM comparison. In this head-to-head evaluation, we examine API token pricing, context window specifications, inference speed (tokens per second), and empirical reasoning performance. From a pure economic perspective, Command R holds a notable pricing advantage for token ingestion. On output generation, Command R is more economical per million generated tokens. In data-heavy architectures requiring extensive repository or document analysis, both models provide an identical memory horizon with 128K tokens. In latency-sensitive production environments, Command R leads in tokens-per-second throughput, making it ideal for real-time conversational agents and high-concurrency workflows. Below is the complete empirical head-to-head breakdown across cost, speed, context, and capability matrices.
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Command R+
RAG FlagshipCohere's 104-billion parameter flagship built for complex enterprise search, multi-step tool use, and verified citations across 128K context.
$2.50 / 1M
$10.00 / 1M
128K tokens
41.5%
Command R
RAG Workhorse35-billion parameter enterprise workhorse optimized for long-context search, high-accuracy RAG, and automated citation grounding.
$0.15 / 1M
$0.60 / 1M
128K tokens
32%
Key Differences at a Glance
- Command R is 16.5x cheaper for API usage (input + output tokens combined).
- Command R is faster at 85 tok/s vs 65 tok/s.
- Command R+ leads on SWE-bench coding (41.5% vs 32.0%).
| Feature | Command R+ | Command R |
|---|---|---|
Intelligence Index Composite reasoning & knowledge score (0-100) | 48 | 43 |
Provider | Cohere | Cohere |
Input Price Cost per million input tokens | $2.50 / 1M | $0.15 / 1M |
Output Price Cost per million output tokens | $10.00 / 1M | $0.60 / 1M |
Blended Price Weighted 7:2:1 cache:input:output per 1M | $2.02 / 1M | $0.13 / 1M |
Context Window Maximum input + output tokens | 128K tokens~192 A4 pages of text | 128K tokens~192 A4 pages of text |
Max Output Tokens Per single request | 8K | 4K |
Throughput Speed Tokens generated per second | 65 tok/s | 85 tok/s |
SWE-bench Verified Real-world software engineering | 41.5% | 32% |
GPQA Diamond Graduate-level reasoning | 56.5% | 46% |
Cached Input Price Prompt caching discount per 1M tokens | $0.75 / 1M | $0.05 / 1M |
Who Wins Where?
At-a-glance decision frameworkEmpirical Head-to-Head Benchmark Scores
Official evaluation metrics verified by independent third-party research labs.
Industry benchmark evaluating real-world GitHub issue resolution and multi-file debugging.
Challenging questions created by domain experts to test complex PhD-level reasoning.
Hardened reasoning and academic knowledge benchmark with reduced lucky-guess probability.
Crowdsourced human preference evaluation based on blind, head-to-head model battles.
Autonomous multi-step tasks executed inside a real command-line terminal environment.
American Invitational Mathematics Examination — multi-step Olympiad-level reasoning.
Accuracy when reasoning over very large inputs that fill the model context window.
Tokens emitted per second during active generation streaming.
Latency & Response Time
Time to first token (TTFT) and estimated end-to-end response time for a typical 500-token response.
Real-Time Interactive Token Cost Simulator
Adjust sliders to calculate projected monthly cloud API spending with prompt caching discounts.
Command R+ · Strengths & Key Advantages
- Unmatched multi-step enterprise tool calling and verified citation accuracy
- Native multilingual proficiency across 10 major global business languages
- Open weights available for on-premise air-gapped sovereign deployment
Considerations & Trade-offs
- Substantial compute requirements (104B parameters) for self-hosted clusters
- API token price ($2.50/$10.00) is higher than lightweight RAG alternatives
Command R · Strengths & Key Advantages
- Industry-standard RAG grounding with precise source citation generation
- Superb price-to-performance ratio ($0.15 input / $0.60 output per million)
- 128K context window with open weights for private corporate self-hosting
Considerations & Trade-offs
- Lower performance on complex competitive coding than specialized code models
- Text-only without native multimodal vision support
Token Use & Task Economics
Estimated cost and token consumption to complete one representative agentic task.
| Metric | Command R+ | Command R |
|---|---|---|
Cost per Task Estimated USD to finish one task | $0.65 | $0.12 |
Output Tokens / Task Tokens generated per task | 35K | 25K |
Reasoning Tokens / Task Thinking tokens burned per task | 0K | 0K |
Technical Specifications
Architecture, release timeline, capabilities, and modalities.
| Feature | Command R+ | Command R |
|---|---|---|
| Official API Model ID (SDK) | command-r-plus | command-r |
| API Protocol | OpenAI-Compatible REST / vLLM / SGLang / HuggingFace TGI | OpenAI-Compatible REST / vLLM / SGLang / HuggingFace TGI |
| Release Date | 2024-08 | 2024-08 |
| Knowledge Cutoff | June 2024 | June 2024 |
| Architecture | Enterprise-Grade Dense Transformer | Retrieval-Augmented Dense Transformer |
| Parameters | 104B | 35B |
| Enterprise Rate Limits (RPM / TPM) | Unlimited (Hardware-bound on self-hosted GPU) / 10,000 RPM Cloud · Unlimited local throughput / 10M+ TPM Managed Cloud | Unlimited (Hardware-bound on self-hosted GPU) / 10,000 RPM Cloud · Unlimited local throughput / 10M+ TPM Managed Cloud |
| Long-Context Tier (>128K/200K) | Flat rate ($2.5/1M in) across full 128K window | Flat rate ($0.15/1M in) across full 128K window |
| Prompt Cache Policy & TTL | Cached input at $0.75/1M tokens | Cached input at $0.05/1M tokens |
| Computer Use / GUI Agent | API / CLI Tool-Use & DOM Agent ready (no raw pixel desktop click loop) | API / CLI Tool-Use & DOM Agent ready (no raw pixel desktop click loop) |
| MCP & Parallel Tool Calling | Native MCP Client/Server ready · Parallel function calling · 100% Strict JSON Schema | Native MCP Client/Server ready · Parallel function calling · 100% Strict JSON Schema |
| Web Search Grounding & Sandbox | Supported via external Tavily/Exa Search & E2B/Docker Sandbox tools | Supported via external Tavily/Exa Search & E2B/Docker Sandbox tools |
| Official Fine-Tuning Support | Full Weights SFT, LoRA, QLoRA, DPO & GRPO RL (Unsloth / Axolotl / Llama-Factory) | Full Weights SFT, LoRA, QLoRA, DPO & GRPO RL (Unsloth / Axolotl / Llama-Factory) |
| Multimodal Token Billing | Text BPE (~4 chars/token) | Text BPE (~4 chars/token) |
| Quantization & Min GPU VRAM | BF16 / FP16, FP8 Dynamic, INT4 AWQ / GPTQ, GGUF (Q4_K_M / Q8_0) · 64 GB VRAM (4-bit Quantized) · 224 GB VRAM (Native BF16) | BF16 / FP16, FP8 Dynamic, INT4 AWQ / GPTQ, GGUF (Q4_K_M / Q8_0) · 22 GB VRAM (4-bit Quantized) · 75 GB VRAM (Native BF16) |
| Safety & Frontier Classification | Open-Weights System Card + Customizable Guardrail Layer (Llama Guard / ShieldGemma) | Open-Weights System Card + Customizable Guardrail Layer (Llama Guard / ShieldGemma) |
| Enterprise Compliance (ZDR/HIPAA/SOC2) | 100% Air-Gapped On-Premises / Private VPC · Full HIPAA, GDPR & SOC2 Control | 100% Air-Gapped On-Premises / Private VPC · Full HIPAA, GDPR & SOC2 Control |
| Input Modalities | text | text |
| Output Modalities | text | text |
Command R+ vs Command R: Quick Answers
Which is more intelligent, Command R+ or Command R?
Command R+ is more intelligent. It scores 48 compared with 43 on the composite Intelligence Index.
Which model is faster?
Command R is faster, generating 85 tokens per second compared with 65 tokens per second.
Which model is cheaper to run?
Command R is cheaper at $0.13 per 1M tokens blended, compared with $2.02 (7:2:1 cache:input:output ratio).
Which model has lower latency?
Command R has lower latency, with a time to first token of 0.42s compared with 0.58s.
Verdict
Verdict & Model Selection Recommendation: Choose Command R+ if your priority is Enterprise knowledge hubs, mission-critical legal document search, and corporate workflows. Its performance in demanding tasks justifies its operational token cost. Choose Command R if your workflow prioritizes Enterprise RAG search, document question answering, and customer support with citations. For large-scale batch processing or customer-facing conversational interfaces, its balance of speed and economics delivers superior ROI.
Frequently asked questions
How does Command R+ compare to Command R in API token pricing and cost per token?+
Command R+ costs $2.50 per 1M input tokens and $10.00 per 1M output tokens, whereas Command R costs $0.15 input and $0.60 output. Overall, Command R is the more cost-effective model for high-volume API pipelines. Both models support prompt caching discounts of up to 90% for repeated prompt prefixes.
Which model has a larger context window: Command R+ or Command R?+
Both Command R+ and Command R offer an identical context window of 128K tokens (~96k words). Both architectures provide equal capacity for large document ingestion, multi-file codebases, and extended multi-turn conversation histories.
Which AI model is better for software engineering and coding: Command R+ or Command R?+
Command R+ scores 41.5% on SWE-bench Verified while Command R scores 32%. For autonomous software engineering and multi-file debugging, Command R+ holds the verified benchmark lead.
What is the difference in reasoning capability and extended thinking between Command R+ and Command R?+
Command R+ is optimized for low-latency direct generation. In contrast, Command R focuses on standard fast inference.
How does inference speed (tokens per second) compare between Command R+ and Command R?+
Command R+ generates approximately 65 tokens per second, while Command R delivers 85 tokens per second. In latency-sensitive production environments, Command R provides faster time-to-first-token (TTFT) and higher streaming response velocity.
Can you implement a tiered LLM routing setup combining Command R+ and Command R to optimize costs?+
Yes! High-efficiency architectures route high-frequency routine classification and conversational tasks to Command R to save operational costs, and dynamically escalate complex architectural queries or reasoning tasks to Command R+. This tiered routing pattern cuts overall API bills by up to 70%.
Understand key metrics like context window, token pricing, reasoning mode, and SWE-bench scores in our comprehensive AI glossary.
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Benchmark scores, token prices, and rate limits evolve rapidly as AI labs release model updates. Always verify current specifications and pricing on the official provider documentation.
Sources: GetInfoUs Independent AI Benchmarks & Official API Specs