Cohere: Command R (08-2024) vs OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b
Head-to-head API pricing and cost comparison between Cohere’s Cohere: Command R (08-2024) and OpenAI’s OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b. Prices auto-refresh daily from OpenRouter.
OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b is 80% cheaper for input tokens; OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b also wins on output tokens.
Side-by-side comparison
| Spec | Cohere: Command R (08-2024) | OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b |
|---|---|---|
| Input price (per 1M) | $0.15 | $0.03 |
| Cached input (per 1M) | — | — |
| Output price (per 1M) | $0.60 | $0.14 |
| Batch input (per 1M) | — | $0.01 |
| Batch output (per 1M) | — | $0.07 |
| Reasoning price (per 1M) | — | — |
| Context window | 128K | 131K |
| Vision support | No | No |
| Caching support | No | No |
| Batch API | No | Yes |
| Reasoning capability | No | No |
Monthly cost at volume
Estimated monthly API spend at common production traffic levels (input/output tokens per request shown).
| Volume | Cohere: Command R (08-2024) | OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
1K req/day 500in / 200out tokens | $5.85 | $1.29 | $4.56 OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b wins |
10K req/day 1500in / 500out tokens | $157.50 | $34.50 | $123.00 OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b wins |
100K req/day 3000in / 800out tokens | $2,790 | $606.00 | $2,184 OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b wins |
1M req/day 8000in / 2000out tokens | $72,000 | $15,600 | $56,400 OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b wins |
Adjust input/output token counts, request volume, batch & cached pricing.
Related comparisons
Frequently asked questions
Which is cheaper, Cohere: Command R (08-2024) or OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b?
For input tokens, OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b is roughly 80% cheaper at $0.03/1M vs $0.15/1M. For output tokens, OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b wins at $0.14/1M. Real-world cost depends on your input/output ratio — use the calculator to model your actual workload.
What’s the context window difference?
Cohere: Command R (08-2024) has a context window of 128K tokens. OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b offers 131K tokens. Larger context windows are valuable for long documents, RAG pipelines, and multi-turn conversations — but they come with higher input-token bills if you fill them every request.
Should I use Cohere: Command R (08-2024) or OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b?
Choose Cohere: Command R (08-2024) if you’re already on the Cohere stack, want broad ecosystem support, or prefer its feature set. Choose OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b for OpenAI’s ecosystem, or its cheaper input tokens. Run a small benchmark on your own prompts before committing — price is only one axis.
How are these prices kept current?
Prices are pulled directly from OpenRouter’s public models API once every 24 hours via a Convex cron job, then normalized to per-1M-token figures. Last refresh: Apr 21, 2026.