Model comparison
Cohere Command A+ vs DeepSeek R1
Cohere against DeepSeek, compared on context, price, and verified benchmark results.
Catalog record checked September 4, 2026Individual provider fields may changeEvidence confidence: High — see receipts below
Cohere
Cohere Command A+
Balanced · Open weights
DeepSeek
DeepSeek R1
Balanced · Open weights
| Specification | Cohere Command A+ | DeepSeek R1 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Cohere | DeepSeek |
| Tier | Balanced | Balanced |
| Context window | 128K | 128K |
| Max output | Not verifiedUnverified | 33K |
| Input / 1M tokens | $0.80 | Winner: $0.55 |
| Output / 1M tokens | $3.20 | Winner: $2.19 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Parameters | 218B total / 25B active (sparse MoE) | 671B total / 37B active (MoE) |
| Reasoning levels | low, medium, high | low, high, max |
| Modalities | text | text |
| License | Apache 2.0 | MIT |
| API model id | CohereLabs/command-a-plus-05-2026 | deepseek-reasoner |
| Released | May 20, 2026 | January 20, 2025 |
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (2026-08-14) | Winner: 43 | 42 |
Prices are USD per million tokens at standard rates, excluding batch and caching discounts. Bold indicates the better figure where one is objectively better. Values we could not confirm from the provider are shown as “Not verified” rather than estimated.
Benchmark receipts
- 2026-08-14: Artificial AnalysisComposite index blending reasoning, knowledge, and coding evals into one 0–100 score. Comparability: directly comparable — AA occasionally rebaselines the index scale between snapshots — a score captured on one date is only comparable to same-snapshot scores (check measuredAt).
Pricing tiers: Cohere Command A+: Azure-hosted Global rate $0.80/$3.20 per MTok (effective 2026-07-01; Data Zone $0.88/$3.52). Cohere-direct publishes no per-token price: open weights (Apache 2.0), a free rate-limited trial API, and Model Vault/enterprise licensing. Cohere calls it the last model in the Command A family. 218B/25B active sparse MoE. · DeepSeek R1: Launch pricing $0.55/$2.19 per MTok (cache hit $0.14). Third-party hosts list ~$0.70/$2.50. Verify which weights a host serves.
Cohere Command A+
Command A+ is Cohere's open-weight (Apache 2.0) 218B/25B sparse MoE for enterprise use.
Best for
- Open-weight deployments
- Enterprise RAG
- Tool use
Watch out
The $0.80/$3.20 figure is the Azure-hosted rate, not a Cohere-direct price — Cohere itself sells licenses and a free rate-limited trial, so budget by deployment path.
DeepSeek R1
DeepSeek R1 is the open-weight (MIT) reasoning model — o1-class quality, 128K context.
Best for
- Harder reasoning on a budget
- Open-weight deployments
- Agentic coding
Watch out
The deepseek-reasoner alias has been remapped to newer models on first-party API; pin the host/checkpoint you cite.
When the cheaper one wins
DeepSeek R1 is cheaper on output at $2.19 per million tokens against $3.20 for Cohere Command A+ — about 1.5×. Use the cheaper tier for classification, extraction, summarisation, and any task where the expensive model’s extra score does not change the accepted output. The expensive one only pays if your hardest task actually fails on the cheap tier. These are standard-tier API rates, excluding batch and cache discounts.
Run the model pickerEvidence confidence: High
How strong and complete the evidence behind this comparison is — not a prediction of which model is better.
- Pricing verified on both sides — Input and output rates are verified for both models.
- 4/5 core specs verified on both sides — Not published for at least one side: max output.
- 1 shared named benchmark (scores match) — Measured on: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index — scores are equivalent, so the benchmark does not separate the pair.
- Verified within the last 90 days — Newest catalog check was 7 days ago.
- Both models carry source citations — Each side has at least two catalog sources on record.
Source receipts
Each catalog figure was checked against the provider or an independent second source on the date shown.
- Cohere Command A+: Azure Retail Prices API (Command A Plus Global $0.80/$3.20) (accessed 2026-09-04)
- Cohere Command A+: AzureSpeed — AI model pricing tracker (same figures) (accessed 2026-09-04)
- Cohere Command A+: Cohere — pricing (no per-token price for current Command generation) (accessed 2026-09-04)
- DeepSeek R1: AI/TLDR — DeepSeek R1 (accessed 2026-08-29)
- DeepSeek R1: PricePerToken — DeepSeek R1 (accessed 2026-08-29)
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Diving deeper on one model? Cohere Command A+ · DeepSeek R1
Common questions
Cohere Command A+ vs DeepSeek R1
Answered from the verified figures on this page rather than general guidance.
Is Cohere Command A+ or DeepSeek R1 cheaper for input?
DeepSeek R1 is cheaper at $0.55 per million input tokens, against $0.80 for Cohere Command A+ — roughly 1.5× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; Cohere Command A+ has tiered pricing: Azure-hosted Global rate $0.80/$3.20 per MTok (effective 2026-07-01; Data Zone $0.88/$3.52). Cohere-direct publishes no per-token price: open weights (Apache 2.0), a free rate-limited trial API, and Model Vault/enterprise licensing. Cohere calls it the last model in the Command A family. 218B/25B active sparse MoE. DeepSeek R1 has tiered pricing: Launch pricing $0.55/$2.19 per MTok (cache hit $0.14). Third-party hosts list ~$0.70/$2.50. Verify which weights a host serves.
Is Cohere Command A+ or DeepSeek R1 cheaper for output?
DeepSeek R1 is cheaper at $2.19 per million output tokens, against $3.20 for Cohere Command A+ — roughly 1.5× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; Cohere Command A+ has tiered pricing: Azure-hosted Global rate $0.80/$3.20 per MTok (effective 2026-07-01; Data Zone $0.88/$3.52). Cohere-direct publishes no per-token price: open weights (Apache 2.0), a free rate-limited trial API, and Model Vault/enterprise licensing. Cohere calls it the last model in the Command A family. 218B/25B active sparse MoE. DeepSeek R1 has tiered pricing: Launch pricing $0.55/$2.19 per MTok (cache hit $0.14). Third-party hosts list ~$0.70/$2.50. Verify which weights a host serves.
Which has the larger context window, Cohere Command A+ or DeepSeek R1?
Both accept about 128K tokens of context, so document length will not decide between them.
Do Cohere Command A+ and DeepSeek R1 support the same reasoning levels?
Cohere Command A+ exposes low, medium, high, while DeepSeek R1 exposes low, high, max.
Should I use Cohere Command A+ or DeepSeek R1?
Both sit in the balanced tier, so the choice usually comes down to price and context rather than capability. Cohere Command A+ suits open-weight deployments; DeepSeek R1 suits harder reasoning on a budget.
Next step
Choosing between them
The verified figures that separate this pair, computed from the catalog rather than restated boilerplate.
- Input price: DeepSeek R1 costs $0.55 per 1M tokens versus $0.80 for Cohere Command A+ — a 1.5x difference at the headline tier.
- Measured capability: Cohere Command A+ leads Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index 43 to 42 (measured 2026-08-14).
Choosing a harness rather than a model — Cursor, Copilot, Claude Code, Windsurf, or Lovable? Compare agentic harnesses · Latest releases.