Model comparison
Cohere Command A+ vs Gemini 2.5 Pro
Cohere against Google, 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
Gemini 2.5 Pro
Balanced
| Specification | Cohere Command A+ | Gemini 2.5 Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Cohere | |
| Tier | Balanced | Balanced |
| Context window | 128K | Winner: 1.05M |
| Max output | Not verifiedUnverified | 66K |
| Input / 1M tokens | Winner: $0.80 | $1.25 |
| Output / 1M tokens | Winner: $3.20 | $10 |
| Weights | Open | Closed |
| Parameters | 218B total / 25B active (sparse MoE) | Not disclosedUnverified |
| Reasoning levels | low, medium, high | low, medium, high |
| Modalities | text | text, image, video, audio, pdf |
| License | Apache 2.0 | Not disclosedUnverified |
| API model id | CohereLabs/command-a-plus-05-2026 | gemini-2.5-pro |
| Released | May 20, 2026 | June 17, 2025 |
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (2026-08-14) | 43 | Winner: 47 |
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. · Gemini 2.5 Pro: $1.25/$10 per MTok (≤200K); $2.50/$15 (>200K). Legacy but still widely listed.
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.
Gemini 2.5 Pro
Gemini 2.5 Pro is Google's previous-generation Pro with a 1.05M-token context and strong multimodal support.
Best for
- Long documents
- Multimodal input
- Google Workspace integration
Watch out
A generation behind Gemini 3.x; verify on your workload.
When the cheaper one wins
Cohere Command A+ is cheaper on output at $3.20 per million tokens against $10 for Gemini 2.5 Pro — about 3.1×. 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.
- 3/5 core specs verified on both sides — Not published for at least one side: max output, parameter count.
- 1 shared named benchmark with differing scores — Measured on: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index.
- 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)
- Gemini 2.5 Pro: Google — Gemini 2.5 Pro GA (accessed 2026-08-29)
- Gemini 2.5 Pro: Google AI pricing (accessed 2026-08-29)
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Diving deeper on one model? Cohere Command A+ · Gemini 2.5 Pro
Common questions
Cohere Command A+ vs Gemini 2.5 Pro
Answered from the verified figures on this page rather than general guidance.
Is Cohere Command A+ or Gemini 2.5 Pro cheaper for input?
Cohere Command A+ is cheaper at $0.80 per million input tokens, against $1.25 for Gemini 2.5 Pro — roughly 1.6× 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. Gemini 2.5 Pro has tiered pricing: $1.25/$10 per MTok (≤200K); $2.50/$15 (>200K). Legacy but still widely listed.
Is Cohere Command A+ or Gemini 2.5 Pro cheaper for output?
Cohere Command A+ is cheaper at $3.20 per million output tokens, against $10 for Gemini 2.5 Pro — roughly 3.1× 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. Gemini 2.5 Pro has tiered pricing: $1.25/$10 per MTok (≤200K); $2.50/$15 (>200K). Legacy but still widely listed.
Which has the larger context window, Cohere Command A+ or Gemini 2.5 Pro?
Gemini 2.5 Pro accepts 1.05M tokens against 128K for Cohere Command A+. This only matters if you routinely send very long documents or large codebases.
Do Cohere Command A+ and Gemini 2.5 Pro support the same reasoning levels?
Yes — both accept the same effort settings: "low", "medium", "high". Higher effort costs more and takes longer, so start low and raise it only where output quality actually improves.
Should I use Cohere Command A+ or Gemini 2.5 Pro?
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; Gemini 2.5 Pro suits long documents.
Can I self-host Cohere Command A+ or Gemini 2.5 Pro?
Cohere Command A+ publishes open weights, but self-hosting and third-party provider access depend on the licence, hardware, serving support, and availability. Gemini 2.5 Pro is a closed model whose supported access paths are controlled by its provider.
Next step
Choosing between them
The verified figures that separate this pair, computed from the catalog rather than restated boilerplate.
- Input price: Cohere Command A+ costs $0.80 per 1M tokens versus $1.25 for Gemini 2.5 Pro — a 1.6x difference at the headline tier.
- Context: Gemini 2.5 Pro takes 1.05M against 128K for Cohere Command A+ — only decisive if your prompts approach the smaller window.
- Measured capability: Gemini 2.5 Pro leads Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index 47 to 43 (measured 2026-08-14).
- Deployment: Cohere Command A+ publishes weights you can self-host; the other is API-only.
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