Grok 4.5 vs Ministral 8B Instruct

    Comparison

    As of August 20, 2026, Ministral 8B Instruct is 98% cheaper per million tokens than Grok 4.5. Grok 4.5 is $2.00 / $6.00 per million input/output tokens versus Ministral 8B Instruct at $0.10 / $0.10. Sources: https://docs.x.ai/docs/models and https://docs.mistral.ai/platform/pricing/

    Sources: xAI API pricing (https://docs.x.ai/docs/models); Mistral AI pricing (https://docs.mistral.ai/platform/pricing/)

    Grok 4.5

    xAI

    $8.00blended / 1M

    Input

    $2.00

    Output

    $6.00

    500K ctx|Proprietary
    98%
    cheaper
    Better value

    Ministral 8B Instruct

    Mistral

    $0.20blended / 1M

    Input

    $0.10

    Output

    $0.10

    128K ctx|Open Source
    Save $7.80 per million tokens by choosing Ministral 8B Instruct over Grok 4.5.

    Grok 4.5 vs Ministral 8B Instruct comparison

    Token pricing, specs, and benchmarks side by side

    Metric
    Grok 4.5
    Ministral 8B Instruct
    Provider
    Provider
    xAI
    Mistral
    License
    Proprietary
    Open Source
    Release Date
    2026-07-16
    2024-10-16
    Pricing (per 1M tokens)
    Input Price+1900%
    $2.00
    $0.10
    Output Price+5900%
    $6.00
    $0.10
    Blended (1M + 1M)
    $8.00
    $0.20
    Model Details
    Context Window
    500K
    128K
    Max Output Tokens
    N/A
    128K
    Knowledge Cutoff
    2026-02-01
    N/A
    Throughput
    80 tok/s
    0.1 tok/s
    Benchmarks
    93%
    93.4%
    53%
    53.8%
    54.0%
    53.5%
    52.6%
    97.8%
    11.1%
    65%
    61.8%
    34.8%
    54.5%
    48.3%
    34.2%
    0.3%
    71.9%
    70.9%
    67.4%
    15.4%
    52.9%
    57.5%
    42.4%
    14%
    43.3%
    86.9%
    89.2%
    83%
    35.0%
    66.0%
    71.7%
    65.5%
    75.3%

    Verdict

    Grok 4.5 vs Ministral 8B Instruct: the bottom line

    Both models are closely matched on benchmarks. Ministral 8B Instruct has the pricing advantage, making it the better value unless Grok 4.5's specific capabilities are critical to your workflow.

    Grok 4.5 vs Ministral 8B Instruct FAQ

    Which is cheaper, Grok 4.5 or Ministral 8B Instruct?

    As of August 20, 2026, Ministral 8B Instruct is 98% 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). Grok 4.5 costs $2.00 / $6.00 per million tokens ($8.00 blended). Sources: https://docs.x.ai/docs/models 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 Grok 4.5 vs Ministral 8B Instruct cost per million tokens?

    Grok 4.5 xAI API pricing is $2.00 input and $6.00 output per million tokens via xAI. Ministral 8B Instruct Mistral API pricing is $0.10 input and $0.10 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, Grok 4.5 or Ministral 8B Instruct?

    Grok 4.5 has a published SWE-bench Verified score of 86.6%. Ministral 8B Instruct does not have that eval on this page yet.

    What is the context window for Grok 4.5 vs Ministral 8B Instruct?

    Grok 4.5 supports a 500K token context window, while Ministral 8B Instruct supports 128K tokens. Grok 4.5 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, Grok 4.5 or Ministral 8B Instruct?

    Shared benchmark scores for Grok 4.5 and Ministral 8B Instruct are still limited. Check the comparison table for the evals each model has published. 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 Grok 4.5 or Ministral 8B Instruct better for production use?

    Both Grok 4.5 and Ministral 8B Instruct 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 Grok 4.5 and Ministral 8B Instruct in my app?

    Yes. Call Grok 4.5 through xAI and Ministral 8B Instruct 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 Grok 4.5 vs Ministral 8B Instruct pricing data?

    List rates are the latest published xAI API pricing and Mistral API pricing, quoted per million tokens. Official rate sheets: https://docs.x.ai/docs/models 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 Grok 4.5 and Ministral 8B Instruct?

    Grok 4.5 supports up to an unspecified number of output tokens per request, while Ministral 8B Instruct supports up to 128K 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, Grok 4.5 or Ministral 8B Instruct?

    Grok 4.5 runs at approximately 80 tokens/second while Ministral 8B Instruct runs at 0.1 tokens/second. Grok 4.5 is faster in raw throughput. 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 Grok 4.5 vs Ministral 8B Instruct comparison?

    Use the model pickers at the top of this LLM comparison. Search any model in the index and the URL updates. Open Grok 4.5 or Ministral 8B 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.

    Grok 4.5 vs Ministral 8B Instruct pricing

    This comparison covers API pricing, context window, throughput, and benchmark scores. Grok 4.5 costs $2.00/M input and $6.00/M output. Ministral 8B Instruct costs $0.10/M input and $0.10/M output via Mistral AI.

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

    The index

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    Next step

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