o4-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
o4-mini specs · Pixtral 12B specs- Priceo4-mini
o4-mini publishes pricing ($4.40 / 1M output tokens) while Pixtral 12B does not.
- Context windowo4-mini
o4-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.
- ModalitiesTie
Both handle text, vision.
- OpennessPixtral 12B
Pixtral 12B ships open weights (Apache-2.0); o4-mini is API-only.
On balance o4-mini edges ahead, winning 2 of 5 categories against Pixtral 12B's 1. o4-mini publishes pricing ($4.40 / 1M output tokens) while Pixtral 12B does not. o4-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. 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); o4-mini is API-only.
o4-mini is the newer of the two, released 7 months after Pixtral 12B, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. o4-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
| Spec | o4-mini | Pixtral 12B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | Mistral |
| Released | Apr 2025 | Sep 2024 |
| Modalities | text, vision | text, vision |
| Context window | 200K tokens | 128K tokens |
| Max output | , | , |
| Input · 1M | $1.10 / 1M tokens | Pricing not published |
| Output · 1M | $4.40 / 1M tokens | Pricing not published |
| Knowledge cutoff | 2024-06 | , |
| 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$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).
Estimated spend for the listed models at your usage. Numbers are derived from each model's published per-million-token rates.
- o4-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.
- GPQA81.4
o4-mini fits when…
- Strong reasoning at mid-tier price
- Fast for a thinking model
- Solid tool-use
- Long-context tasks, handles 200K tokens vs 128K for Pixtral 12B.
Pixtral 12B fits when…
- Apache-2.0
- Vision in 12B size
- Single-GPU
- Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (Apache-2.0).
Consider GPT-5.5
OpenAI's mid-cycle GPT-5 refresh, improved reasoning, tool use, and multimodal grounding over the 2025 launch.
Frequently asked
Is o4-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?
o4-mini accepts 200K tokens vs 128K for Pixtral 12B.Is o4-mini or Pixtral 12B better for coding?
Both o4-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). o4-mini is API-only.When were o4-mini and Pixtral 12B released?
o4-mini was released by OpenAI on 2025-04-16. Pixtral 12B was released by Mistral on 2024-09-17.
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