Is Cohere API still free?
Yes, with limits Partly. Cohere API had a free tier with notable restrictions on the vendor's public page on 2026-10-05.
Evaluation API keys are free but limited to 1,000 API calls per month and 20 Chat requests per minute.
Free tier limits and listed figures
| Item | Value on the vendor page |
|---|---|
| API calls (trial key) | 1,000 per month |
| Chat | 20 requests per minute |
| Embed (text) | 2,000 inputs per minute |
| Embed (images) | 5 inputs per minute |
| Rerank | 10 requests per minute |
| Tokenize | 100 requests per minute |
Card and commercial use
- Credit card required
- not stated by the vendor
- Commercial use allowed
- not stated by the vendor
Gotchas
- Docs: "evaluation keys (free but limited in usage), and production keys (paid and much less limited in usage)"
- All endpoints share the cap of 1,000 calls per month on a trial key
- For newer model variants such as Command A Reasoning, production keys work like trial keys unless you contact sales
Recent change
No recent change is noted on the vendor page that was read.
Alternatives to compare
- Is Google Gemini API still free? Yes, with limits
- Is OpenRouter still free? Yes, with limits
- Is Cloudflare Workers AI still free? Yes
More in this category: AI and LLM APIs.
Source
Vendor page read by software on 2026-10-05, written out as text so you can copy it into your browser:
https://docs.cohere.com/docs/rate-limits