Cohere North vs Writer (2026): which should you pick?

Pick Cohere North if

• Makes sense if your company wants agents inside its own VPC
• Fits if a team will pay for a managed rollout

Look elsewhere if

• Not for you if you're an individual: it's sold to organizations
• Skip it if you want to try before talking to sales
• Watch out: no price is published, and hosting is quoted by GPU and replicas
• Watch out: no phone or desktop apps are listed

Pick Writer if

• Fits if you are a team of up to 5 that wants to try AI playbooks for 14 days
• Works for companies that need brand voice and governance controls and can buy through sales

Look elsewhere if

• Skip it if you need a price before talking to anyone, as neither plan shows one
• Tight if you go past 5 users, 5 playbooks or 3 connectors, the Starter caps
• Watch out: SSO, SCIM, audit logs and HIPAA coverage are Enterprise only
• Watch out: refunds are at Writer's discretion, and ACH, invoicing and PayPal are not accepted

Cohere North

• No price is published; pricing is custom and starts with a demo request.
• It is sold to organizations, with no self-serve or free plan.
• The pages do not list apps for phones or desktops; it is reached through a browser sign-in.
• Model Vault, the hosting option, is priced separately by GPU type and number of replicas.

Writer

• Neither plan shows a price, so the Starter cost per seat has to be requested or seen at sign-up.
• Starter caps users at 5, playbooks at 5 and active connectors at 3.
• SSO, SCIM, audit logs and HIPAA coverage are Enterprise features.
• Refunds are at Writer's discretion, and it does not accept ACH, invoicing or PayPal.

Cohere North

Agents and automations

Agents and automations can be deployed and shared across teams to handle routine tasks and multi-step workflows.

Search over company knowledge

North answers questions grounded in a company's own knowledge and data, from simple Q&A to more involved queries.

Applications and memory

Users can build decks, dashboards, documents and apps from chat, and memory keeps context between sessions.

Guardrails and admin

Administrators get a control panel for users and agents, plus guardrails on how people interact with the AI.

Private deployment

North can run in the customer's own VPC, on premises, or on Cohere's Model Vault inference platform.

Writer

WRITER Agent

One interface for chat and for running multi-step work, with outputs such as documents, presentations and spreadsheets.

Playbooks and routines

Playbooks capture repeatable multi-step workflows, and routines run them on a schedule. Starter allows 5 playbooks.

Knowledge Graph

Company content is connected so the agent can ground its answers; Starter includes 50 GB in a single graph.

Brand voice profiles

Personality profiles and style guides shape the tone of output, with one team profile on Starter and departmental profiles on Enterprise.

Governance and security

Enterprise adds audit logs, role-based access, SAML SSO, SCIM and agent observability. The plans page lists SOC 2 Type II.

Cohere North

Pricing could not be confirmed. See cohere.com.

Writer

• StarterCustom

  Up to 5 users, 5 playbooks, up to 3 scheduled routines and 3 active connectors. Price not shown; seats are monthly or annual.

• EnterpriseCustom

  Unlimited users, playbooks and connectors, with governance, SSO and SCIM, and priority support. Sold through sales.

Cohere North

No public discounts listed.

Writer

• Nonprofit

  20% off for nonprofits and schools

  Writer's plans page offers a 20% discount on Starter and Enterprise to non-profits and educational institutions, requested by email from a qualifying address.