Ministral 8B Instruct vs Mistral Large 3

    Comparison

    As of August 25, 2026, Ministral 8B Instruct is 97% cheaper per million tokens than Mistral Large 3. Ministral 8B Instruct is $0.10 / $0.10 per million input/output tokens versus Mistral Large 3 at $2.00 / $5.00. Source: https://docs.mistral.ai/platform/pricing/

    Source: Mistral AI pricing (https://docs.mistral.ai/platform/pricing/)

    Better value

    Ministral 8B Instruct

    Mistral

    $0.20blended / 1M

    Input

    $0.10

    Output

    $0.10

    128K ctx|Open Source
    97%
    cheaper

    Mistral Large 3

    Mistral

    $7.00blended / 1M

    Input

    $2.00

    Output

    $5.00

    128K ctx|Open Source
    Save $6.80 per million tokens by choosing Ministral 8B Instruct over Mistral Large 3.

    Ministral 8B Instruct vs Mistral Large 3 comparison

    Token pricing, specs, and benchmarks side by side

    Shared benchmarks

    Each bar is share of the current leader on that eval. Click a row to open the board.

    Ministral 8B InstructMistral Large 3

    Score vs price

    MATH. Left is cheaper. Up is a higher score. The line is the best score you can buy at each price.

    Best score at each priceMinistral 8B InstructMistral Large 3
    Metric
    Ministral 8B Instruct
    Mistral Large 3
    Provider
    Provider
    Mistral
    Mistral
    License
    Open Source
    Open Source
    Release Date
    2024-10-16
    2025-09-01
    Pricing (per 1M tokens)
    Input Price-95%
    $0.10
    $2.00
    Output Price-98%
    $0.10
    $5.00
    Blended (1M + 1M)
    $0.20
    $7.00
    Model Details
    Context Window
    128K
    128K
    Max Output Tokens
    128K
    8.2K
    Knowledge Cutoff
    N/A
    N/A
    Throughput
    0.1 tok/s
    N/A
    Benchmarks
    36.2%
    74.2%
    11.1%
    65%
    34.8%
    54.5%
    90.4%
    48.3%
    71.9%
    70.9%
    55.1%
    0%
    57.5%
    2%
    67.6%
    84.9%
    83%
    65.5%
    74.9%
    68.5%
    75.3%
    Benchmark Wins
    Ministral 8B Instruct 1|2 Mistral Large 3

    Verdict

    Ministral 8B Instruct vs Mistral Large 3: the bottom line

    Ministral 8B Instruct offers significantly lower pricing, while Mistral Large 3 leads on benchmark performance. Your choice depends on whether cost efficiency or raw capability matters more for your use case.

    Ministral 8B Instruct vs Mistral Large 3 FAQ

    Which is cheaper, Ministral 8B Instruct or Mistral Large 3?

    As of August 25, 2026, Ministral 8B Instruct is 97% cheaper on blended LLM API pricing. Ministral 8B Instruct costs $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.10 per million output tokens ($0.20 blended 1M-in + 1M-out). Mistral Large 3 costs $2.00 / $5.00 per million tokens ($7.00 blended). Sources: https://docs.mistral.ai/platform/pricing/ and https://docs.mistral.ai/platform/pricing/. The cheapest LLM for your app still depends on how many output tokens you generate.

    How much does Ministral 8B Instruct vs Mistral Large 3 cost per million tokens?

    Ministral 8B Instruct Mistral API pricing is $0.10 input and $0.10 output per million tokens via Mistral AI. Mistral Large 3 Mistral API pricing is $2.00 input and $5.00 output per million tokens via Mistral AI. Use those four numbers, not ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro subscription prices, when you are comparing APIs.

    Which is better for coding, Ministral 8B Instruct or Mistral Large 3?

    Ministral 8B Instruct has a published HumanEval score of 34.8%. Mistral Large 3 does not have that eval on this page yet.

    What is the context window for Ministral 8B Instruct vs Mistral Large 3?

    Ministral 8B Instruct supports a 128K token context window, while Mistral Large 3 supports 128K tokens. Both models have the same context window size. Filling a larger window bills more input tokens, so the cheaper-per-million model can still cost more on long documents.

    Which model performs better on benchmarks, Ministral 8B Instruct or Mistral Large 3?

    Mistral Large 3 leads on 2 of 3 shared benchmarks versus Ministral 8B Instruct's 1 wins. Check the comparison table for GPQA Diamond, SWE-bench, MMLU, HLE, and the other evals we track. Token price and benchmark score together are the usual LLM comparison, not either number alone.

    Is Ministral 8B Instruct or Mistral Large 3 better for production use?

    Both Ministral 8B Instruct and Mistral Large 3 are production API models. For cost-sensitive production traffic, Ministral 8B Instruct has better economics on the blended 1M-in + 1M-out scale. For maximum capability, weight the benchmark table for your domain. Many production stacks route cheap models for drafts and a frontier model for the hard turn, which is usually cheaper than sending everything to the expensive API.

    Can I switch between Ministral 8B Instruct and Mistral Large 3 in my app?

    Yes. Call Ministral 8B Instruct through Mistral AI and Mistral Large 3 through Mistral AI with separate API keys, or through a gateway that already wraps both. Keep prompts in tokens, not characters, when you estimate the invoice. AnotherWrapper templates can swap providers without rewriting auth and billing.

    How accurate is this Ministral 8B Instruct vs Mistral Large 3 pricing data?

    List rates are the latest published Mistral API pricing and Mistral API pricing, quoted per million tokens. Official rate sheets: https://docs.mistral.ai/platform/pricing/ and https://docs.mistral.ai/platform/pricing/. Prompt caching, batch APIs, and committed-use discounts can change the invoice. Benchmark scores are from official publications and independent evals, updated as new numbers land.

    What is the output token limit for Ministral 8B Instruct and Mistral Large 3?

    Ministral 8B Instruct supports up to 128K output tokens per request, while Mistral Large 3 supports up to 8K output tokens. Output tokens are usually the expensive half of API pricing, so a higher max output cap is a capability, not a discount.

    Which model has better throughput, Ministral 8B Instruct or Mistral Large 3?

    Ministral 8B Instruct has a measured throughput of approximately 0.1 tokens/second. Throughput data for Mistral Large 3 is not yet available. Throughput (tokens per second) and time-to-first-token are why two models with the same per-million-token price can still feel different in chat and agents.

    How do I switch the models in this Ministral 8B Instruct vs Mistral Large 3 comparison?

    Use the model pickers at the top of this LLM comparison. Search any model in the index and the URL updates. Open Ministral 8B Instruct or Mistral Large 3 from the sidebar for the single-model API pricing page, or go back to the LLM pricing table to sort by cheapest blended cost.

    Ministral 8B Instruct vs Mistral Large 3 pricing

    This comparison covers API pricing, context window, throughput, and benchmark scores. Ministral 8B Instruct costs $0.10/M input and $0.10/M output via Mistral AI. Mistral Large 3 costs $2.00/M input and $5.00/M output via Mistral AI.

    Rank both on the LLM leaderboard, SWE-bench, and Humanity's Last Exam.

    The index

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