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Pixtral 12B vs Qwen3-72B

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

Updated

Pixtral 12B specs · Qwen3-72B specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceTie

    Neither model publishes per-token API pricing.

  • 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 Qwen3-72B.

  • OpennessTie

    Both ship open weights, self-host either one.

On balance Pixtral 12B edges ahead, winning 1 of 5 categories against Qwen3-72B's 0. Neither model publishes per-token API pricing. 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, Pixtral 12B handles text, vision while Qwen3-72B handles text, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Both ship open weights, self-host either one.

Qwen3-72B 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. Pixtral 12B is usually picked for vision and edge deployment workloads, while Qwen3-72B sees more deployments in open source llm and commercial use llm. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

SpecPixtral 12BQwen3-72B
ProviderMistralAlibaba
ReleasedSep 2024Apr 2025
Modalitiestext, visiontext
Context window128K tokens128K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1MPricing not publishedPricing not published
Output · 1MPricing not publishedPricing 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, 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.

  • Pixtral 12BPricing unavailable
  • Qwen3-72BPricing unavailable

Benchmarks compared

Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.

Pixtral 12BQwen3-72B
  • MMLU,84.0
Pick Pixtral 12B if

Pixtral 12B fits when…

  • Apache-2.0
  • Vision in 12B size
  • Single-GPU
  • Multimodal needs covering vision.
Pick Qwen3-72B if

Qwen3-72B fits when…

  • Apache-2.0 license
  • Strongest open-weight on Chinese
  • Strong multilingual coverage
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 specsPixtral 12B vs Mistral Large 2Qwen3-72B vs Mistral Large 2

Frequently asked

  • Is Pixtral 12B or Qwen3-72B 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 Pixtral 12B and Qwen3-72B ship a 128K-token context window.
  • Is Pixtral 12B or Qwen3-72B better for coding?
    Both Pixtral 12B and Qwen3-72B 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. Pixtral 12B is licensed under Apache-2.0; Qwen3-72B under Apache-2.0.
  • When were Pixtral 12B and Qwen3-72B released?
    Pixtral 12B was released by Mistral on 2024-09-17. Qwen3-72B was released by Alibaba on 2025-04-29.
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