Cohere Trial API Key
Cohere auto-issues a free, rate-limited Trial API key on signup giving access to Command A/R/R+, Aya, plus Embed and Rerank models for noncom use.
- Requests / month
- 1K
- Requests / min
- 20
- Card required
- No
Cohere Trial API Key scores 4/10 for free value in LLM. The main constraint: Free trial key with no card: reported ~20 requests/minute and a shared 1,000 API calls/month across Command, Embed and Rerank endpoints. Not permitted for production or commercial use.
Free value score
4.0 / 10Show the math
Key metrics
Models
22 free · 22 totalLimits may be stale — last re-verified outside this section's freshness window.
| Model | Family | AA | Access |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aya Expanse 32B (c4ai-aya-expanse-32b) | Aya | — | free |
| Aya Vision 32B (c4ai-aya-vision-32b) | Aya | — | free |
| Cohere Transcribe (cohere-transcribe-03-2026) | Cohere Transcribe | — | free |
| Command (command) | Command | — | free |
| Command A (command-a-03-2025) | Command | — | free |
| Command A Reasoning (command-a-reasoning-08-2025) | Command | — | free |
| Command A Translate (command-a-translate-08-2025) | Command | — | free |
| Command A Vision (command-a-vision-07-2025) | Command | — | free |
| Command A+ (command-a-plus-05-2026) | Command | — | free |
| Command Light (command-light) | Command | — | free |
| Command R (command-r-03-2024 / alias command-r) | Command | — | free |
| Command R (command-r-08-2024) | Command | — | free |
| Command R+ (command-r-plus-04-2024 / alias command-r-plus) | Command | — | free |
| Command R+ (command-r-plus-08-2024) | Command | — | free |
| Command R7B (command-r7b-12-2024) | Command | — | free |
| Embed English/Multilingual v3.0 (embed-english-v3.0, embed-multilingual-v3.0 + light variants) | Cohere Embed | — | free |
| Embed v4.0 (embed-v4.0) | Cohere Embed | — | free |
| Rerank v4.0 (rerank-v4.0-pro / rerank-v4.0-fast) | Cohere Rerank | — | free |
| Tiny Aya Earth (tiny-aya-earth) | Aya | — | free |
| Tiny Aya Fire (tiny-aya-fire) | Aya | — | free |
| Tiny Aya Global (tiny-aya-global) | Aya | — | free |
| Tiny Aya Water (tiny-aya-water) | Aya | — | free |
What you get
Trial key created automatically at signup, no credit card
Access to Command A/R/R+, Aya, Embed and Rerank models
Strong rerank/embedding models ideal for RAG experiments
Free for all API calls within the trial rate limits
Gotchas
- No production or commercial use
Trial API keys are explicitly barred from production and commercial use; you must apply and add billing for a Production key.
- Production key requires application + billing
Upgrading from Trial to Production requires completing a Go to Production workflow and adding billing — free tier does not self-upgrade.
Sources
-
"Trial keys (and prod keys on newer Chat model variants) are limited to 1,000 API calls a month."
https://docs.cohere.com/docs/rate-limits -
"Command A+ | 20 req / min | Contact [email protected] (Chat API trial rate limit table; Command A Reasoning, Command A, R+, R, R7B also 20 req/min trial; Rerank 10 req/min; Embed 2,000 inputs/min)"
https://docs.cohere.com/docs/rate-limits -
"API calls made from a Trial API key are free. However, trial keys are rate limited and are not permitted to be used for production or commercial purposes."
https://cohere.com/pricing -
"Command A+ scores 29 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, placing it above average among comparable models (averaging 24)."
https://artificialanalysis.ai/models/command-a-plus -
"Today, we're excited to announce Cohere's latest $500 million raise at a $6.8 billion valuation in an oversubscribed round led by Radical Ventures."
https://cohere.com/blog/august-2025-funding-round
Alternatives
Same category · similar quota
Every GitHub account gets free, rate-limited API access to a large catalog of frontier and open models (GPT-5/4.1, Llama, DeepSeek, Grok, Mistral, Cohere, Phi) for prototyping.
Unlimited code completions + premium requests (legacy 300/mo, now usage-based AI Credits, 1 credit = $0.01) across GPT-5.5/5.4/Codex, Claude Opus 4.8/Sonnet 5, Gemini 3.1/3.5, and Kimi K2.7 Code (GA); agent mode in VS Code/JetBrains/CLI
Kimi K2.7 Code + K2.7 HighSpeed (~180 tok/s) + K2.6; ~300-1,200 requests/5h with weekly quota, up to 30 concurrent; OpenAI- AND Anthropic-compatible endpoints (Claude Code, OpenCode, OpenClaw, custom agents)