MISTRAL VS XAI
Mistral Large 3 vs Grok 4.5
Mistral Large 3 is about 4.0x cheaper than Grok 4.5 on a blended 3:1 input:output rate — the same 10K-in/2K-out request costs $0.008 vs $0.032. Grok 4.5 has the larger context window (500,000 vs 262,144 tokens).
Pricing verified
API pricing per 1M tokens
| Model | Input / 1M tokens | Output / 1M tokens | Blended (3:1 mix) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mistral Large 3 | $0.50 | $1.50 | $0.75 |
| Grok 4.5 | $2.00 | $6.00 | $3.00 |
Rates from official Mistral pricing and official xAI pricing, checked 2026-08-11.
What a real workload costs
Example: one request with 10,000 input tokens and 2,000 output tokens, then that request at 100,000 runs per month.
| Model | Per request (10K in / 2K out) | Per month (100K requests) | Monthly delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mistral Large 3 | $0.008 | $800 | — |
| Grok 4.5 | $0.032 | $3,200 | +$2,400 |
Model your own prompt sizes and volumes in the token cost analyzer, or check caching savings with the prompt caching calculator.
Specs side by side
| Spec | Mistral Large 3 | Grok 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral | xAI |
| Context window | 262,144 tokens | 500,000 tokens |
| Model class | General text | Reasoning |
| Tokenizer | Proprietary (counts estimated) | Proprietary (counts estimated) |
Count tokens for each model on its own page: Mistral Large 3 token counter and Grok 4.5 token counter. All Mistral models are on the Mistral Token Counter. All xAI models are on the Grok Token Counter.
FAQ
Mistral Large 3 vs Grok 4.5 FAQ
Which is cheaper, Mistral Large 3 or Grok 4.5?
Mistral Large 3 is cheaper. At rates checked 2026-08-11, Mistral Large 3 costs $0.50 input / $1.50 output per 1M tokens, while Grok 4.5 costs $2.00 input / $6.00 output — about a 4.0x difference on a typical 3:1 input-heavy workload.
How much does a real request cost on Mistral Large 3 vs Grok 4.5?
A request with 10,000 input tokens and 2,000 output tokens costs about $0.008 on Mistral Large 3 and $0.032 on Grok 4.5. At 100,000 such requests per month that is $800 vs $3,200 — a difference of $2,400 per month.
Which has the bigger context window, Mistral Large 3 or Grok 4.5?
Grok 4.5. It supports 500,000 tokens of context versus 262,144 tokens — roughly 375,000 English words in one request.
Do Mistral Large 3 and Grok 4.5 count tokens the same way?
Not exactly. Mistral Large 3 uses a proprietary tokenizer (counts are estimates) and Grok 4.5 uses a proprietary tokenizer (counts are estimates). The same prompt will tokenize differently, which shifts effective cost per word.