Choose Cohere: Command A if…
No advantage on the data we track — pick it for provider preference or output quality on your own prompts.
Cohere: Command A vs OpenAI: o3
OpenAI: o3 comes out ahead on the data we track: 7 advantages and none for Cohere: Command A.
Key numbers
| Spec | Cohere: Command A | OpenAI: o3 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Cohere | OpenAI |
| Input price (per 1M tokens) | $2.50 | $2.00 |
| Output price (per 1M tokens) | $10.00 | $8.00 |
| Blended price (3:1 input/output) | $4.38 | $3.50 |
| Cheaper than … of all models we track | 13% | 17% |
| Context window | 256K tokens (~384 pages) | 200K tokens (~300 pages) |
| Larger context than … of all models | 44% | 37% |
| Max output per response | 8K tokens (~6,100 words) | 100K tokens (~75,000 words) |
| Input types | text | image, text, file |
| Output types | text | text |
| Free variant | No | No |
| Listed since | 2025-03-13 | 2025-04-16 |
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What it costs for real workloads
Monthly cost at list price for five common workloads. Token counts per unit are stated so you can scale them to your own traffic. A workload that does not fit a model's context window is marked rather than priced.
| Workload (per month) | Cohere: Command A | OpenAI: o3 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer-support chatbot 50,000 conversations — each a 6-turn conversation (1,500 in / 400 out tokens) | $388 | $310 | OpenAI: o3 saves $77.50 |
| RAG search over documents 20,000 questions — each a question answered from ~8 retrieved passages (6,000 in / 500 out tokens) | $400 | $320 | OpenAI: o3 saves $80.00 |
| Coding / tool-using agent 2,000 tasks — each a multi-step task with tool calls and file context (60,000 in / 6,000 out tokens) | $420 | $336 | OpenAI: o3 saves $84.00 |
| Batch summarisation 10,000 documents — each a 6,000-word report summarised to a page (8,000 in / 600 out tokens) | $260 | $208 | OpenAI: o3 saves $52.00 |
| Long-document analysis 500 documents — each a 150-page contract or codebase read in one pass (100,000 in / 2,000 out tokens) | $135 | $108 | OpenAI: o3 saves $27.00 |
Capabilities side by side
| Capability | Cohere: Command A | OpenAI: o3 | What it lets you do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tool / function calling | — | ✓ Yes | call your APIs and run agent loops |
| Structured output (JSON schema) | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | return JSON that validates against your schema |
| Reasoning / thinking mode | — | ✓ Yes | spend extra tokens thinking before answering hard problems |
| Image input | — | ✓ Yes | read screenshots, charts and scanned pages |
| Audio input | — | — | take speech or audio directly |
| File / PDF input | — | ✓ Yes | accept documents without your own parsing step |
| Image output | — | — | generate images, not just text |
| Built-in web search | — | ✓ Yes | answer from live web results |
| Seed (reproducible sampling) | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | repeat a generation for tests and evals |
| Log-probabilities | — | — | read token confidence for classification and scoring |
From each model's published parameters and input/output types. “—” means not advertised, not proven absent.
Price history
- Cohere: Command A: price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-03-10.
- OpenAI: o3: price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-03-10.
Which should you choose?
Choose OpenAI: o3 if…
- cost matters at scale — it is 20% cheaper on a typical 3:1 input/output mix ($310 vs $388 a month for 50,000 support chats)
- you need tool / function calling — to call your APIs and run agent loops; Cohere: Command A does not advertise it
- you need reasoning / thinking mode — to spend extra tokens thinking before answering hard problems; Cohere: Command A does not advertise it
- you need image input — to read screenshots, charts and scanned pages; Cohere: Command A does not advertise it
- you need file / PDF input — to accept documents without your own parsing step; Cohere: Command A does not advertise it
- you need built-in web search — to answer from live web results; Cohere: Command A does not advertise it
- you generate long outputs in one go — up to 100K tokens (about 75,000 words) per response
Frequently asked questions
Is Cohere: Command A better than OpenAI: o3?
OpenAI: o3 comes out ahead on the data we track: 7 advantages and none for Cohere: Command A.
Which is cheaper, Cohere: Command A or OpenAI: o3?
OpenAI: o3 is cheaper: $3.50 vs $4.38 per 1M tokens at a typical 3:1 input/output mix, 20% less. For 50,000 support conversations a month that is $310 against $388.
How much do Cohere: Command A and OpenAI: o3 cost per million tokens?
Cohere: Command A costs $2.50 per 1M input tokens and $10.00 per 1M output tokens; OpenAI: o3 costs $2.00 input and $8.00 output. Output tokens are billed separately, so long answers shift the gap.
Which has the bigger context window, Cohere: Command A or OpenAI: o3?
Cohere: Command A: 256K tokens, about 384 pages, against 200K (about 300 pages) for OpenAI: o3.
Do Cohere: Command A and OpenAI: o3 support function calling and JSON output?
Tool calling — Cohere: Command A: not advertised, OpenAI: o3: yes. JSON-schema structured output — Cohere: Command A: yes, OpenAI: o3: yes.
Can Cohere: Command A or OpenAI: o3 read images?
Only OpenAI: o3 accepts image input; Cohere: Command A is text-only for input.
Is Cohere: Command A or OpenAI: o3 free to use?
No free variant is listed for either; both are pay-per-token.
What is the maximum output length of Cohere: Command A and OpenAI: o3?
Cohere: Command A can write up to 8K tokens (about 6,100 words) per response; OpenAI: o3 up to 100K (about 75,000 words).
When were Cohere: Command A and OpenAI: o3 released?
Cohere: Command A was listed on 2025-03-13; OpenAI: o3 on 2025-04-16.
About the two models
Cohere: Command A
Command A is an open-weights 111B parameter model with a 256k context window focused on delivering great performance across agentic, multilingual, and coding use cases. Compared to other leading proprietary...
Full Cohere: Command A specs →OpenAI: o3
o3 is a well-rounded and powerful model across domains. It sets a new standard for math, science, coding, and visual reasoning tasks. It also excels at technical writing and instruction-following....
Full OpenAI: o3 specs →