LLM·Dex
Newsletter

Mistral Medium vs Pixtral Large

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

Updated

Mistral Medium specs · Pixtral Large specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceMistral Medium

    Mistral Medium publishes pricing ($2.00 / 1M output tokens) while Pixtral Large 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.

  • ModalitiesPixtral Large

    Pixtral Large supports 2 modalities (text, vision) vs 1 for Mistral Medium.

  • OpennessPixtral Large

    Pixtral Large ships open weights (Mistral Research License); Mistral Medium is API-only.

On balance Pixtral Large edges ahead, winning 2 of 5 categories against Mistral Medium's 1. Mistral Medium publishes pricing ($2.00 / 1M output tokens) while Pixtral Large 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. They differ in modality coverage, Mistral Medium handles text while Pixtral Large handles text, vision, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Pixtral Large ships open weights (Mistral Research License); Mistral Medium is API-only.

Mistral Medium is the newer of the two, released 1 months after Pixtral Large, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Mistral Medium is usually picked for customer support and chatbots workloads, while Pixtral Large sees more deployments in vision and ocr. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

SpecMistral MediumPixtral Large
ProviderMistralMistral
ReleasedDec 2024Nov 2024
Modalitiestexttext, vision
Context window128K tokens128K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1M$0.40 / 1M tokensPricing not published
Output · 1M$2.00 / 1M tokensPricing not published
Knowledge cutoff,,
Open weightsNoYes (Mistral Research License)
API availableYesYes

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$4.20 vs ,
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$42.00 vs ,
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$72.00 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.

  • Mistral Medium$0.140
  • Pixtral LargePricing 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 Mistral Medium if

Mistral Medium fits when…

  • Mid-tier balance
  • EU-friendly
Pick Pixtral Large if

Pixtral Large fits when…

  • Strong document AI
  • Open weights
  • Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (Mistral Research License).
  • Multimodal needs covering vision.
Don't want either?

Consider Mistral Large 2

Mistral's flagship API model, strong on code and reasoning, EU-friendly hosting.

See Mistral Large 2 specsMistral Medium vs Mistral Large 2Pixtral Large vs Mistral Large 2

Frequently asked

  • Is Mistral Medium or Pixtral Large 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 Mistral Medium and Pixtral Large ship a 128K-token context window.
  • Is Mistral Medium or Pixtral Large better for coding?
    Both Mistral Medium and Pixtral Large 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 Large ships open weights (Mistral Research License). Mistral Medium is API-only.
  • When were Mistral Medium and Pixtral Large released?
    Mistral Medium was released by Mistral on 2024-12-18. Pixtral Large was released by Mistral on 2024-11-18.
Friday digest

The week's AI launches, in your inbox.

One short email every Friday, new models, leaks, and quietly-shipped APIs you missed.