Command R+ (08-2024) vs Gemini 2.5 Pro
A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.
- PriceTie
Both land near $10.00 / 1M output tokens, call it a wash on cost.
- Context windowGemini 2.5 Pro
Gemini 2.5 Pro accepts 2.1M tokens vs 128K, 16.4× the room for long documents and codebases.
- BenchmarksGemini 2.5 Pro
Gemini 2.5 Pro leads in 1 of 1 shared benchmarks; the biggest gap is on MMLU (broad academic knowledge), where it scores 86.0 vs 75.7.
- ModalitiesGemini 2.5 Pro
Gemini 2.5 Pro supports 4 modalities (text, vision, audio, video) vs 1 for Command R+ (08-2024).
- OpennessCommand R+ (08-2024)
Command R+ (08-2024) ships open weights (CC-BY-NC 4.0); Gemini 2.5 Pro is API-only.
On balance Gemini 2.5 Pro edges ahead, winning 3 of 5 categories against Command R+ (08-2024)'s 1. Both land near $10.00 / 1M output tokens, call it a wash on cost. Gemini 2.5 Pro accepts 2.1M tokens vs 128K, 16.4× the room for long documents and codebases.
Gemini 2.5 Pro leads in 1 of 1 shared benchmarks; the biggest gap is on MMLU (broad academic knowledge), where it scores 86.0 vs 75.7. They differ in modality coverage, Command R+ (08-2024) handles text while Gemini 2.5 Pro handles text, vision, audio, video, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Command R+ (08-2024) ships open weights (CC-BY-NC 4.0); Gemini 2.5 Pro is API-only.
Gemini 2.5 Pro is the newer of the two, released 7 months after Command R+ (08-2024), which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Command R+ (08-2024) is usually picked for rag and data extraction workloads, while Gemini 2.5 Pro sees more deployments in long context and rag. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.
Side-by-side specs
| Spec | Command R+ (08-2024) | Gemini 2.5 Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Cohere | |
| Released | Aug 2024 | Mar 2025 |
| Modalities | text | text, vision, audio, video |
| Context window | 128K tokens | 2.1M tokens |
| Max output | , | , |
| Input · 1M | $2.50 / 1M tokens | $1.25 / 1M tokens |
| Output · 1M | $10.00 / 1M tokens | $10.00 / 1M tokens |
| Knowledge cutoff | , | 2025-01 |
| Open weights | Yes (CC-BY-NC 4.0) | No |
| API available | Yes | Yes |
Pricing at scale
What you'd actually pay at typical workloads. Numbers come from each model's published per-million-token rates.
- Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day$22.50 vs $18.75
- Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$225 vs $188
- RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$435 vs $248
Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: $22.50 vs $18.75 per month, model B comes out ahead. Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: $225 vs $188 per month, model B comes out ahead. RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: $435 vs $248 per month, model B comes out ahead.
Estimated spend for the listed models at your usage. Numbers are derived from each model's published per-million-token rates.
- Command R+ (08-2024)$0.750
- Gemini 2.5 Pro$0.625
Benchmarks compared
Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.
- MMLU75.786.0
- GPQA,84.0
Command R+ (08-2024) fits when…
- RAG-tuned
- Citation generation
- Enterprise tooling
- Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (CC-BY-NC 4.0).
Gemini 2.5 Pro fits when…
- 2M-token context window
- Strong on long-document tasks
- Native multimodal handling
- Long-context tasks, handles 2.1M tokens vs 128K for Command R+ (08-2024).
- Multimodal needs covering vision, audio, video.
Consider Command R
Cohere's mid-tier RAG-optimized model, affordable and reliable on retrieval workloads.
Frequently asked
Is Command R+ (08-2024) or Gemini 2.5 Pro cheaper?
Both Command R+ (08-2024) and Gemini 2.5 Pro are priced equivalently at $10.00 / 1M tokens per million output tokens.Which has the larger context window?
Gemini 2.5 Pro accepts 2.1M tokens vs 128K for Command R+ (08-2024).Is Command R+ (08-2024) or Gemini 2.5 Pro better for coding?
Both Command R+ (08-2024) and Gemini 2.5 Pro are competitive on coding benchmarks. See each model's individual spec page for HumanEval and SWE-bench scores where published. For an opinionated pick, consult our Best LLM for Coding ranking.Are either of these models open source?
Command R+ (08-2024) ships open weights (CC-BY-NC 4.0). Gemini 2.5 Pro is API-only.When were Command R+ (08-2024) and Gemini 2.5 Pro released?
Command R+ (08-2024) was released by Cohere on 2024-08-30. Gemini 2.5 Pro was released by Google on 2025-03-25.
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