Is Grok 3 or Pixtral 12B cheaper?

Per-token pricing isn't published for at least one of these models, check each model's spec page for current rates.

Which has the larger context window?

Both Grok 3 and Pixtral 12B ship a 128K-token context window.

Is Grok 3 or Pixtral 12B better for coding?

Both Grok 3 and Pixtral 12B are competitive on coding benchmarks. See each model's individual spec page for HumanEval and SWE-bench scores where published. For an opinionated pick, consult our Best LLM for Coding ranking.

When were Grok 3 and Pixtral 12B released?

Grok 3 was released by xAI on 2025-02-17. Pixtral 12B was released by Mistral on 2024-09-17.

Is Grok 3 or Pixtral 12B cheaper?

Per-token pricing isn't published for at least one of these models, check each model's spec page for current rates.

Which has the larger context window?

Both Grok 3 and Pixtral 12B ship a 128K-token context window.

Is Grok 3 or Pixtral 12B better for coding?

Both Grok 3 and Pixtral 12B are competitive on coding benchmarks. See each model's individual spec page for HumanEval and SWE-bench scores where published. For an opinionated pick, consult our Best LLM for Coding ranking.

When were Grok 3 and Pixtral 12B released?

Grok 3 was released by xAI on 2025-02-17. Pixtral 12B was released by Mistral on 2024-09-17.

Grok 3 vs Pixtral 12B

A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.

UpdatedApr 30, 2026

Grok 3 specs · Pixtral 12B specs

Verdict by category

PriceGrok 3
Grok 3 publishes pricing ($15.00 / 1M output tokens) while Pixtral 12B does not.
Context windowTie
Both ship a 128K-token context window.
BenchmarksTie
No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores.
ModalitiesTie
Both handle text, vision.
OpennessPixtral 12B
Pixtral 12B ships open weights (Apache-2.0); Grok 3 is API-only.

It's a genuine coin-flip between Grok 3 and Pixtral 12B: 1 category wins each, with the rest tied. Grok 3 publishes pricing ($15.00 / 1M output tokens) while Pixtral 12B does not. Both ship a 128K-token context window.

No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. Both target the same set of modalities (text, vision), so the deciding factors are price, context, and raw quality. Pixtral 12B ships open weights (Apache-2.0); Grok 3 is API-only.

Grok 3 is the newer of the two, released 5 months after Pixtral 12B, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Grok 3 is usually picked for chatbots and research agent workloads, while Pixtral 12B sees more deployments in vision and edge deployment. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

Spec	Grok 3	Pixtral 12B
Provider	xAI	Mistral
Released	Feb 2025	Sep 2024
Modalities	text, vision	text, vision
Context window	128K tokens	128K tokens
Max output	,	,
Input · 1M	$3.00 / 1M tokens	Pricing not published
Output · 1M	$15.00 / 1M tokens	Pricing not published
Knowledge cutoff	2024-08	,
Open weights	No	Yes (Apache-2.0)
API available	Yes	Yes

Pricing at scale

What you'd actually pay at typical workloads. Numbers come from each model's published per-million-token rates.

Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day$31.50 vs ,
Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$315 vs ,
RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$540 vs ,

Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates).

Price calculator

Estimated spend for the listed models at your usage. Numbers are derived from each model's published per-million-token rates.

Input tokens / dayOutput tokens / dayHorizon

Grok 3$1.05
Pixtral 12BPricing unavailable

Benchmarks compared

Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.

Benchmark scores not yet available. We only publish numbers we can source from official model cards or independent leaderboards, see methodology.

Pick Grok 3 if

Grok 3 fits when…

Real-time X access
Reasoning modes

Pick Pixtral 12B if

Pixtral 12B fits when…

Apache-2.0
Vision in 12B size
Single-GPU
Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (Apache-2.0).

Don't want either?

Consider Grok 4

xAI's mid-2025 flagship, top scores on Humanity's Last Exam at launch, with native real-time X integration.

See Grok 4 specs Grok 3 vs Grok 4 Pixtral 12B vs Grok 4

Frequently asked

Is Grok 3 or Pixtral 12B cheaper?
Per-token pricing isn't published for at least one of these models, check each model's spec page for current rates.
Which has the larger context window?
Both Grok 3 and Pixtral 12B ship a 128K-token context window.
Is Grok 3 or Pixtral 12B better for coding?
Both Grok 3 and Pixtral 12B are competitive on coding benchmarks. See each model's individual spec page for HumanEval and SWE-bench scores where published. For an opinionated pick, consult our Best LLM for Coding ranking.
Are either of these models open source?
Pixtral 12B ships open weights (Apache-2.0). Grok 3 is API-only.
When were Grok 3 and Pixtral 12B released?
Grok 3 was released by xAI on 2025-02-17. Pixtral 12B was released by Mistral on 2024-09-17.

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