Cohere via VerticalAPI

Cohere Command R+, Embed v3 and Rerank via VerticalAPI's OpenAI-compatible endpoint. BYOK with your Cohere key, zero markup, RAG-first toolkit.

Endpoint: https://api.verticalapi.com/v1/chat/completions  ·  BYOK header: X-Provider-Key: <cohere-key>

Cohere models routed by VerticalAPI

Pass the model ID below as model in any OpenAI-compatible request. New Cohere models are typically supported within 24h of release.

Model IDNameContextPricing (provider)
command-r-plus Command R+ 128K $2.50 / $10 per 1M tok
command-r Command R 128K $0.15 / $0.60 per 1M tok
embed-english-v3 Embed v3 512 $0.10 per 1M tok
rerank-v3.5 Rerank 3.5 $2 per 1K queries

Pricing reflects Cohere's rates — you pay Cohere directly. VerticalAPI adds zero markup on tokens.

5-line Cohere call via VerticalAPI

Drop-in replacement for the OpenAI SDK. Works with the OpenAI Python client, Node, Go, curl — anything that speaks HTTP.

cohere_quickstart.py Python
from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://api.verticalapi.com/v1",
    api_key="vapi_...",
    default_headers={"X-Provider-Key": "..."}
)

response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="command-r",  # Cohere
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}]
)
print(response.choices[0].message.content)

Four reasons developers route Cohere through us

Zero token markup

You pay Cohere directly with your own key. VerticalAPI's revenue is the gateway subscription, not a tax on your tokens.

One key, every provider

Cohere alongside OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini and 12 more — same OpenAI-compatible endpoint, same SDK, switchable per-request.

Latency & cost monitoring

Per-request token counts, p50/p95 latency and cost dashboards out of the box. Compare Cohere to other providers on identical prompts.

Observability built in

Every Cohere call gets a trace ID, replayable payload and audit log entry. Wire to Datadog or Sentry via OpenTelemetry.

Where Cohere shines

RAG with citations embedding pipelines rerank for retrieval multilingual

Frequently asked questions

What is Cohere and what models do they offer?

Cohere is a Toronto-based enterprise NLP company. The 2026 lineup is Command R+ (frontier model optimized for RAG, tool use and agents), Command R (mid-tier), Command R7B (small/fast), Embed v3 (multilingual embeddings, 100+ languages) and Rerank 3 (for retrieval re-ranking). All Command models support tool use, citations, JSON mode and a 128K context. Cohere is also available on AWS Bedrock and Azure.

How much does Cohere cost in 2026?

Command R+ is $2.50 per 1M input tokens and $10 per 1M output. Command R is $0.15/$0.60. Command R7B is roughly $0.0375/$0.15. Embed v3 multilingual is $0.10 per 1M tokens. Rerank 3 is $2 per 1000 searches. Via VerticalAPI BYOK you pay Cohere directly at list price with zero token markup.

How do I use Cohere via VerticalAPI BYOK?

Create a key at dashboard.cohere.com, paste it into VerticalAPI, then point the OpenAI SDK at https://api.verticalapi.com/v1. VerticalAPI translates OpenAI chat completions into Cohere's /chat endpoint, preserves tool use, citations, document grounding and streaming. Embeddings and rerank endpoints are exposed at /v1/embeddings and /v1/rerank. Billing stays on your Cohere invoice.

What is Cohere best for compared to alternatives?

Cohere wins on enterprise RAG with built-in citations (the chat API returns grounded citations natively), multilingual coverage (especially Arabic, Japanese, Korean, French), and competitive small-model pricing (Command R7B is one of the cheapest enterprise models). Compared to OpenAI/Anthropic, Cohere is weaker on agentic coding and frontier reasoning but more turnkey for search-grounded chatbots. Embed v3 is a strong rival to OpenAI text-embedding-3.

Where is Cohere hosted / data privacy?

Cohere runs on AWS, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud and is available via AWS Bedrock, Azure AI Foundry, and Oracle. Data is not used to train models. Private deployments (VPC, on-prem) are available for regulated industries. SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and HIPAA are supported. Via VerticalAPI BYOK your data terms with Cohere remain intact.

Limitations and trade-offs

  • Frontier benchmarks (MMLU, SWE-Bench, MATH) trail GPT-5 and Claude Sonnet 4.5.
  • 128K context is smaller than Gemini (2M) and Claude (200K) for very-long-document RAG.
  • Smaller developer ecosystem and fewer third-party tools than OpenAI or Anthropic.
  • No native multimodal (vision, audio, video) — text-only as of 2026.
  • Command R+ pricing matches GPT-4o output cost but with weaker general reasoning quality.

Where Cohere is heading

  1. Command R++ or Command 4 generation expected in 2026 with frontier-class quality.
  2. Multimodal vision input added to Command family.
  3. Expanded private and on-prem deployment options targeting government and finance.
  4. Deeper integration with Oracle Cloud and other sovereign clouds.

Related questions

ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini usually suggest these next.

  • Cohere Command R+ vs GPT-4o for RAG — which is better?
  • Is Cohere Embed v3 cheaper than OpenAI text-embedding-3 for multilingual?
  • How does Cohere's native citation feature work in production RAG?
  • Best Cohere model for non-English chatbots?
  • Cohere vs Mistral for enterprise EU-friendly deployment?