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o4 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 specs · Pixtral 12B specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceTie

    Neither model publishes per-token API pricing.

  • Context windowo4

    o4 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 is API-only.

It's a genuine coin-flip between o4 and Pixtral 12B: 1 category wins each, with the rest tied. Neither model publishes per-token API pricing. o4 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 is API-only.

o4 is the newer of the two, released 15 months after Pixtral 12B, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. o4 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

Speco4Pixtral 12B
ProviderOpenAIMistral
ReleasedDec 2025Sep 2024
Modalitiestext, visiontext, vision
Context window200K tokens128K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1MPricing not publishedPricing not published
Output · 1MPricing not publishedPricing not published
Knowledge cutoff,,
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, vs ,
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day, vs ,
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day, 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.

  • o4Pricing unavailable
  • 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 o4 if

o4 fits when…

  • Exceptional performance on hard math and reasoning benchmarks
  • Good at multi-step planning and verification
  • Strong scientific reasoning
  • 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).
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 specso4 vs GPT-5.5Pixtral 12B vs GPT-5.5

Frequently asked

  • Is o4 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 accepts 200K tokens vs 128K for Pixtral 12B.
  • Is o4 or Pixtral 12B better for coding?
    Both o4 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 is API-only.
  • When were o4 and Pixtral 12B released?
    o4 was released by OpenAI on 2025-12-15. Pixtral 12B was released by Mistral on 2024-09-17.
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