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Cohere API

by Cohere@cohereToronto, Ontario, CanadaNo ratings yet

Cohere API for building retrieval, generation, and embedding features

Visit cohere.com
Tool type
Language model and retrieval API
Made for
Developers and technical teams
Runs on
Hosted API or private deployment
Requests are made to Cohere's API; Model Vault and private deployments are separate options.
Last checked
28 Oct 2026
4 product sources

What it does

The Cohere API gives developers access to Cohere's models for text generation, embeddings, reranking, and document parsing. Developers send text, documents, or images and receive generated text, vector embeddings, relevance-ranked results, or structured content back. Supporting models include Command for generation, Embed for semantic representations, Rerank for ordering search results, and Parse for turning documents into structured output.

Developers typically use the API to build retrieval-augmented generation pipelines, where Embed and Rerank find and order relevant passages before a generative model answers. The docs describe quickstart guides, cookbooks, and API reference material. Cohere also offers private deployment and a dedicated Model Vault for teams that need isolated inference, which is a separate deployment route from the standard API.

The API suits developers and technical teams building search, retrieval, or enterprise AI features. Getting started requires a Cohere account, which issues a free Trial API key with rate limits and no production use; a Production key requires an application and bills pay-as-you-go. Trial keys are not for commercial use, and pricing for current models should be confirmed in the rate table.

What it can do

  • Generate text with Command generative models
  • Create semantic embeddings with Embed models
  • Rerank search results with Rerank models
  • Parse documents into structured content with Parse 5
  • Transcribe speech with the Transcribe model
  • Translate text with North Small Translate and Command A Translate

Example workflows

Retrieval-augmented answers
Input: a document collection and a user question. Steps: embed documents with Embed, retrieve candidates, rerank them with Rerank, and pass the top passages to a Command model. Output: a generated answer grounded in the retrieved passages.
Document ingestion for search
Input: scanned or complex enterprise documents. Steps: parse them with Parse 5, then embed the structured content for indexing. Output: searchable structured records suitable for retrieval.

Before you choose

  • Trial API keys are rate limited and are not permitted for production or commercial use; a Production key requires an application and is billed pay-as-you-go.
  • Token-based billing means costs depend on input and output token volume; reranking is billed per search, where one search is one query with up to 100 documents.
  • Some listed models are open-weight downloads under licenses such as CC-BY-NC-4.0 or Apache 2.0, which are separate from hosted API usage terms.

Listed under

Get started

An account automatically receives a Trial API key viewable in the dashboard.

  1. Create a Cohere account and sign in to the dashboard at dashboard.cohere.com.
  2. Copy the automatically issued Trial API key from the dashboard API Keys section.
  3. Make a first call by following the quickstart guides and API reference in the docs at docs.cohere.com.
Get a Trial API key from the Cohere dashboard

Plans and prices

Prices in USD

Trial API calls are free but rate limited and not for production. Production API calls are billed pay-as-you-go, with invoices issued at month end or at $250 outstanding. Rates cited in the reviewed information are legacy or specific-model examples and should be confirmed in the current rate table.

Trial (free)Usage-basedFree within trial rate limits.
  • Free API calls
  • Rate limited, not for production or commercial use
Production (pay-as-you-go)Usage-basedRefer to the product's rate table for current per-model rates; example legacy FAQ rates are not general rates.
  • Billed per token or per search
  • Invoiced monthly or at $250 outstanding

Source: cohere.com/pricing, checked 28 Oct 2026. Prices can change; check before you buy.

Sources for this overview

Product pages, documentation, and pricing checked 28 Oct 2026. Each source supports part of the overview; availability and prices can change.

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Last checked 28 Oct 2026. Every field keeps its source and date; unknown means we couldn’t confirm it.