Cohere vs Scaleway: Token Pricing, Speed & Intelligence

Full comparison of Cohere and Scaleway — live token pricing, latency, throughput, context window, strengths, weaknesses, and best use cases. Updated July 2026.

Cohere

Enterprise NLP — Command R+ with retrieval-augmented generation

Cohere focuses on enterprise NLP use cases, particularly retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and search. Command R+ is their flagship model, optimised for tool use and multi-step reasoning in enterprise workflows. Cohere also offers embedding and reranking models that pair well with their LLMs.

RAGEnterprise searchEmbeddingsTool useMultilingual

Proprietary models

Scaleway

French cloud provider with sovereign EU LLM inference

Scaleway is a French cloud provider offering GPU compute and LLM inference with a focus on European data sovereignty. Their Generative APIs service hosts Llama 3.3 and other open-weight models, making them a strong choice for European businesses with data residency requirements.

European complianceFrench data sovereigntyGDPROpen-sourceGPU compute

Open-weight hostHosts open weights

Key metrics

Cheapest input ($/1M)

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Cheapest output ($/1M)

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Peak throughput

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Best latency (TTFT)

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Intelligence score

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Context window

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Live token pricing

Strengths & weaknesses

Cohere

Best-in-class RAG with native grounding and citations

Embedding and reranking models for full search pipeline

Enterprise SLAs and on-premise deployment options

Command R+ optimised for multi-step tool use

Strong multilingual support

Intelligence scores below frontier leaders

Less suitable for creative or general chat tasks

Smaller developer community than OpenAI/Anthropic

Scaleway

French cloud — strongest EU data sovereignty credentials

GDPR-compliant with data centres in France and Netherlands

GPU compute + LLM inference from one provider

Competitive pricing for European market

Long-established cloud provider (founded 1999)

Smaller model catalog than US-based inference providers

Lower throughput than speed-optimised providers

Less developer tooling than OpenAI or Anthropic

Key differentiators

Cohere

The only major LLM provider with a complete RAG stack — LLM, embeddings, and reranking — all from one API.

Scaleway

The strongest European data sovereignty credentials — a French company with French data centres, ideal for organisations with strict EU data residency requirements.

Frequently asked questions

Cohere FAQs

What is Cohere best used for?

Cohere excels at retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), enterprise search, and document processing. Command R+ is optimised for grounded generation with citations, making it ideal for knowledge bases, customer support, and research tools.

Does Cohere offer embedding models?

Yes. Cohere's Embed models are among the best available for semantic search and RAG pipelines. Combined with their Rerank model, you can build a complete search stack using only Cohere's API.

How much does Cohere cost?

Command R+ pricing varies by use case. Cohere offers a free trial tier and enterprise pricing. Check their pricing page for current rates as they vary by model and volume.

Scaleway FAQs

Is Scaleway GDPR-compliant?

Yes. Scaleway is a French company with data centres in France and the Netherlands. All data stays within the EU, making it one of the strongest options for GDPR compliance and French data sovereignty requirements.

What LLM models does Scaleway offer?

Scaleway's Generative APIs service hosts Llama 3.3 and other open-weight models. Their catalog is focused on the most widely-used open-source models.

How does Scaleway compare to Nebius AI for European inference?

Both are European providers with GDPR-compliant infrastructure. Scaleway has stronger French data sovereignty credentials (French company, French data centres) while Nebius AI has a larger model catalog and more inference-focused infrastructure.

Provider resources

Cohere

Provider page Website Pricing Docs

Scaleway

Provider page Website Pricing Docs

Cohere — Enterprise NLP — Command R+ with retrieval-augmented generation

The only major LLM provider with a complete RAG stack — LLM, embeddings, and reranking — all from one API.

Scaleway — French cloud provider with sovereign EU LLM inference

The strongest European data sovereignty credentials — a French company with French data centres, ideal for organisations with strict EU data residency requirements.

Key strengths compared

Cohere

▸Best-in-class RAG with native grounding and citations
▸Embedding and reranking models for full search pipeline
▸Enterprise SLAs and on-premise deployment options

Scaleway

▸French cloud — strongest EU data sovereignty credentials
▸GDPR-compliant with data centres in France and Netherlands
▸GPU compute + LLM inference from one provider

Provider category context

Cohere is a frontier lab, founded in 2019. Scaleway is a cloud, founded in 1999. The category difference means these providers serve partially overlapping use cases — compare the model lists and pricing tables above to find the best fit for your specific workload.

How to choose between them

Choose Cohere if you need best-in-class rag with native grounding and citations. Choose Scaleway if you need french cloud — strongest eu data sovereignty credentials. For high-volume production workloads, run a cost comparison using the token pricing table above with your actual prompt/completion token ratio — the cheapest provider depends heavily on your input-to-output token ratio.