pricepertoken
Cohere vs Google · synced 2026-08-11

command-r-plus vs gemini-3.5-flash-lite

gemini-3.5-flash-lite is 8.3× cheaper on input than command-r-plus.

command-r-plus gemini-3.5-flash-lite
Input / 1M $2.50 $0.30
Cached input / 1M — $0.03
Output / 1M $10.00 $2.50
Context window 128K 1M
Max output 4K 66K
Provider Cohere Google
Vision No Yes
Tool calling Yes Yes
Token count estimated estimated

Capability for the money

Independent measurement · Artificial Analysis · read 2026-08-11

gemini-3.5-flash-lite is 5.1× cheaper than command-r-plus and scores higher on hard reasoning (GPQA Diamond) — there is no case for paying more here.

  1. Hard reasoning

    graduate-level science and multi-step analysis

    GPQA Diamond
    command-r-plus32.3%
    gemini-3.5-flash-lite83.8%

    gemini-3.5-flash-lite +51.5

Averaged over the benchmarks both models sat, gemini-3.5-flash-lite returns 98.6 points of pass rate per dollar of blended price against 7.4 — the ratio that decides whether the dearer model earns its rate.

Each figure is a pass rate: the share of that test set the model answered correctly, measured by a third party rather than self-reported by the lab. Rows are different tests of different difficulty, so compare a model against the other model, not one row against the next. No published following instructions, coding or tool use score for one of these models, so those lenses are omitted. And a benchmark is not your workload — it narrows the shortlist, it does not pick for you.

Which to pick

List price is not production cost. Output length, cache hit rate, retries and task quality move the real number more than the headline rate does — price your own prompt on the token ledger before deciding.

Related comparisons

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