Pixtral-12B vs Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct

    Comparison

    As of August 25, 2026, Pixtral-12B is 83% cheaper per million tokens than Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct. Pixtral-12B is $0.15 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens versus Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct at $0.30 / $1.49. Sources: https://docs.mistral.ai/platform/pricing/ and https://bailian.console.aliyun.com/

    Sources: Mistral AI pricing (https://docs.mistral.ai/platform/pricing/); Qwen pricing (https://bailian.console.aliyun.com/)

    Better value

    Pixtral-12B

    Mistral

    $0.30blended / 1M

    Input

    $0.15

    Output

    $0.15

    128K ctx|Open Source
    83%
    cheaper

    Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct

    Qwen

    $1.79blended / 1M

    Input

    $0.30

    Output

    $1.49

    262.1K ctx|Open Source
    Save $1.49 per million tokens by choosing Pixtral-12B over Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct.

    Pixtral-12B vs Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct 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.

    Pixtral-12BQwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct

    Score vs price

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

    Best score at each pricePixtral-12BQwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct
    Metric
    Pixtral-12B
    Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct
    Provider
    Provider
    Mistral
    Qwen
    License
    Open Source
    Open Source
    Release Date
    2024-09-17
    2025-09-22
    Pricing (per 1M tokens)
    Input Price-50%
    $0.15
    $0.30
    Output Price-90%
    $0.15
    $1.49
    Blended (1M + 1M)
    $0.30
    $1.79
    Model Details
    Context Window
    128K
    262.1K
    Max Output Tokens
    8.2K
    262.1K
    Knowledge Cutoff
    N/A
    N/A
    Throughput
    0.1 tok/s
    N/A
    Benchmarks
    51.9%
    61.3%
    87.8%
    66.7%
    68.1%
    62.1%
    74.7%
    69.2%
    88.8%
    52.5%
    72%
    48.1%
    89.7%
    67.7%
    70.7%
    82.2%
    64.8%
    81.8%
    83.4%
    90.7%
    97.1%
    51.3%
    57.4%
    80%
    89.2%
    67.7%
    66.5%
    58%
    84.3%
    52.7%
    60.5%
    8.5%
    89.9%
    81.8%
    77.8%
    92.2%
    78.7%
    78.4%
    76.8%
    72.8%
    76.3%
    86.1%
    92%
    48.6%
    79.3%
    95.4%
    60.4%
    74.7%
    78.6%
    85.5%
    Benchmark Wins
    Pixtral-12B 1|2 Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct

    Verdict

    Pixtral-12B vs Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct: the bottom line

    Pixtral-12B offers significantly lower pricing, while Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct leads on benchmark performance. Your choice depends on whether cost efficiency or raw capability matters more for your use case.

    Pixtral-12B vs Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct FAQ

    Which is cheaper, Pixtral-12B or Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct?

    As of August 25, 2026, Pixtral-12B is 83% cheaper on blended LLM API pricing. Pixtral-12B costs $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens ($0.30 blended 1M-in + 1M-out). Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct costs $0.30 / $1.49 per million tokens ($1.79 blended). Sources: https://docs.mistral.ai/platform/pricing/ and https://bailian.console.aliyun.com/. The cheapest LLM for your app still depends on how many output tokens you generate.

    How much does Pixtral-12B vs Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct cost per million tokens?

    Pixtral-12B Mistral API pricing is $0.15 input and $0.15 output per million tokens via Mistral AI. Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct Qwen API pricing is $0.30 input and $1.49 output per million tokens via Qwen. Use those four numbers, not ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro subscription prices, when you are comparing APIs.

    Which is better for coding, Pixtral-12B or Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct?

    Pixtral-12B has a published HumanEval score of 72%. Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct does not have that eval on this page yet.

    What is the context window for Pixtral-12B vs Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct?

    Pixtral-12B supports a 128K token context window, while Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct supports 262K tokens. Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct offers a larger context window. 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, Pixtral-12B or Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct?

    Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct leads on 2 of 3 shared benchmarks versus Pixtral-12B'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 Pixtral-12B or Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct better for production use?

    Both Pixtral-12B and Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct are production API models. For cost-sensitive production traffic, Pixtral-12B 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 Pixtral-12B and Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct in my app?

    Yes. Call Pixtral-12B through Mistral AI and Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct through Qwen 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 Pixtral-12B vs Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct pricing data?

    List rates are the latest published Mistral API pricing and Qwen API pricing, quoted per million tokens. Official rate sheets: https://docs.mistral.ai/platform/pricing/ and https://bailian.console.aliyun.com/. 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 Pixtral-12B and Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct?

    Pixtral-12B supports up to 8K output tokens per request, while Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct supports up to 262K 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, Pixtral-12B or Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct?

    Pixtral-12B has a measured throughput of approximately 0.1 tokens/second. Throughput data for Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct 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 Pixtral-12B vs Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct comparison?

    Use the model pickers at the top of this LLM comparison. Search any model in the index and the URL updates. Open Pixtral-12B or Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct from the sidebar for the single-model API pricing page, or go back to the LLM pricing table to sort by cheapest blended cost.

    Pixtral-12B vs Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct pricing

    This comparison covers API pricing, context window, throughput, and benchmark scores. Pixtral-12B costs $0.15/M input and $0.15/M output via Mistral AI. Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct costs $0.30/M input and $1.49/M output.

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

    The index

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