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Mistral Small 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.

Updated

Mistral Small specs · Pixtral 12B specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceMistral Small

    Mistral Small publishes pricing ($0.60 / 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.

  • ModalitiesPixtral 12B

    Pixtral 12B supports 2 modalities (text, vision) vs 1 for Mistral Small.

  • OpennessTie

    Both ship open weights, self-host either one.

It's a genuine coin-flip between Mistral Small and Pixtral 12B: 1 category wins each, with the rest tied. Mistral Small publishes pricing ($0.60 / 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. They differ in modality coverage, Mistral Small handles text while Pixtral 12B handles text, vision, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Both ship open weights, self-host either one.

Both shipped within roughly a month of each other in 2024, so they share the same generation of training data and tooling. Mistral Small is usually picked for cheapest llm and fastest llm 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

SpecMistral SmallPixtral 12B
ProviderMistralMistral
ReleasedSep 2024Sep 2024
Modalitiestexttext, vision
Context window128K tokens128K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1M$0.20 / 1M tokensPricing not published
Output · 1M$0.60 / 1M tokensPricing not published
Knowledge cutoff,,
Open weightsYes (Apache-2.0)Yes (Apache-2.0)
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$1.50 vs ,
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$15.00 vs ,
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$33.60 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 Small$0.050
  • 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 Mistral Small if

Mistral Small fits when…

  • Apache-2.0 open-weight
  • Fast and cheap
Pick Pixtral 12B if

Pixtral 12B fits when…

  • Apache-2.0
  • Vision in 12B size
  • Single-GPU
  • 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 Small vs Mistral Large 2Pixtral 12B vs Mistral Large 2

Frequently asked

  • Is Mistral Small 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 Mistral Small and Pixtral 12B ship a 128K-token context window.
  • Is Mistral Small or Pixtral 12B better for coding?
    Both Mistral Small 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?
    Both ship with open weights. Mistral Small is licensed under Apache-2.0; Pixtral 12B under Apache-2.0.
  • When were Mistral Small and Pixtral 12B released?
    Mistral Small was released by Mistral on 2024-09-18. Pixtral 12B was released by Mistral on 2024-09-17.
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