Grok 4 vs Mistral Medium
A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.
Updated
Grok 4 specs · Mistral Medium specs- PriceMistral Medium
Mistral Medium is roughly 7.5× cheaper on output tokens ($2.00 vs $15.00 per 1M).
- Context windowGrok 4
Grok 4 accepts 256K tokens vs 128K, 2.0× the room for long documents and codebases.
- BenchmarksTie
No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores.
- ModalitiesGrok 4
Grok 4 supports 2 modalities (text, vision) vs 1 for Mistral Medium.
- OpennessTie
Both are closed-weight, API-only.
On balance Grok 4 edges ahead, winning 2 of 5 categories against Mistral Medium's 1. Mistral Medium is roughly 7.5× cheaper on output tokens ($2.00 vs $15.00 per 1M). Grok 4 accepts 256K tokens vs 128K, 2.0× the room for long documents and codebases.
No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. They differ in modality coverage, Grok 4 handles text, vision while Mistral Medium handles text, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Both are closed-weight, API-only.
Grok 4 is the newer of the two, released 7 months after Mistral Medium, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Grok 4 is usually picked for reasoning and research agent workloads, while Mistral Medium sees more deployments in customer support and chatbots. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.
Side-by-side specs
| Spec | Grok 4 | Mistral Medium |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | xAI | Mistral |
| Released | Jul 2025 | Dec 2024 |
| Modalities | text, vision | text |
| Context window | 256K tokens | 128K tokens |
| Max output | , | , |
| Input · 1M | $3.00 / 1M tokens | $0.40 / 1M tokens |
| Output · 1M | $15.00 / 1M tokens | $2.00 / 1M tokens |
| Knowledge cutoff | 2024-11 | , |
| Open weights | No | No |
| 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 $4.20
- Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$315 vs $42.00
- RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$540 vs $72.00
Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: $31.50 vs $4.20 per month, model B comes out ahead. Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: $315 vs $42.00 per month, model B comes out ahead. RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: $540 vs $72.00 per month, model B comes out ahead.
Estimated spend for the listed models at your usage. Numbers are derived from each model's published per-million-token rates.
- Grok 4$1.05
- Mistral Medium$0.140
Benchmarks compared
Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.
- GPQA87.5
Grok 4 fits when…
- Real-time X data access
- Strong on benchmarks at launch
- Less restrictive content policy than peers
- Long-context tasks, handles 256K tokens vs 128K for Mistral Medium.
- Multimodal needs covering vision.
Mistral Medium fits when…
- Mid-tier balance
- EU-friendly
- Cost-sensitive workloads, 7.5× cheaper than Grok 4 on output tokens.
Consider Grok 3
xAI's first frontier-tier release, established the company's Colossus-trained model line.
Frequently asked
Is Grok 4 or Mistral Medium cheaper?
Mistral Medium is cheaper at $2.00 / 1M tokens per million output tokens, vs $15.00 / 1M tokens for Grok 4.Which has the larger context window?
Grok 4 accepts 256K tokens vs 128K for Mistral Medium.Is Grok 4 or Mistral Medium better for coding?
Both Grok 4 and Mistral Medium 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?
Neither model ships open weights, both are accessible only via their respective providers' APIs.When were Grok 4 and Mistral Medium released?
Grok 4 was released by xAI on 2025-07-09. Mistral Medium was released by Mistral on 2024-12-18.
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