LLM·Dex
Newsletter

o3-mini 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

o3-mini specs · Pixtral 12B specs
Verdict by category
  • Priceo3-mini

    o3-mini publishes pricing ($4.40 / 1M output tokens) while Pixtral 12B does not.

  • Context windowo3-mini

    o3-mini accepts 200K tokens vs 128K, 1.6× 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.

  • ModalitiesPixtral 12B

    Pixtral 12B supports 2 modalities (text, vision) vs 1 for o3-mini.

  • OpennessPixtral 12B

    Pixtral 12B ships open weights (Apache-2.0); o3-mini is API-only.

It's a genuine coin-flip between o3-mini and Pixtral 12B: 2 category wins each, with the rest tied. o3-mini publishes pricing ($4.40 / 1M output tokens) while Pixtral 12B does not. o3-mini accepts 200K tokens vs 128K, 1.6× 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, o3-mini handles text while Pixtral 12B handles text, vision, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Pixtral 12B ships open weights (Apache-2.0); o3-mini is API-only.

o3-mini 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. o3-mini is usually picked for reasoning and math 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

Speco3-miniPixtral 12B
ProviderOpenAIMistral
ReleasedJan 2025Sep 2024
Modalitiestexttext, vision
Context window200K tokens128K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1M$1.10 / 1M tokensPricing not published
Output · 1M$4.40 / 1M tokensPricing not published
Knowledge cutoff2023-10,
Open weightsNoYes (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$9.90 vs ,
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$99.00 vs ,
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$191 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.

  • o3-mini$0.330
  • 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.

o3-miniPixtral 12B
  • GPQA79.7
Pick o3-mini if

o3-mini fits when…

  • Reasoning at mid-tier cost
  • Fast for a thinking model
  • Long-context tasks, handles 200K tokens vs 128K for Pixtral 12B.
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).
  • Multimodal needs covering vision.
Don't want either?

Consider GPT-5.5

OpenAI's mid-cycle GPT-5 refresh, improved reasoning, tool use, and multimodal grounding over the 2025 launch.

See GPT-5.5 specso3-mini vs GPT-5.5Pixtral 12B vs GPT-5.5

Frequently asked

  • Is o3-mini 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?
    o3-mini accepts 200K tokens vs 128K for Pixtral 12B.
  • Is o3-mini or Pixtral 12B better for coding?
    Both o3-mini 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). o3-mini is API-only.
  • When were o3-mini and Pixtral 12B released?
    o3-mini was released by OpenAI on 2025-01-31. Pixtral 12B was released by Mistral on 2024-09-17.
Friday digest

The week's AI launches, in your inbox.

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