OpenAI vs Mistral AI Pricing
Mistral AI is cheaper than OpenAI at the entry level: Ministral 3B costs $0.040 per 1M output tokens against $0.140 for gpt-oss-20b — 3.5× the price. On current flagships, OpenAI's Daybreak Red costs $75.00/1M output against $7.50/1M for Mistral AI's Mistral Medium. Prices are USD, current as of September 28, 2026.
Per-million-token pricing for OpenAI and Mistral AI, with side-by-side flagship models, cheapest tiers, and context windows. Pricing data syncs weekly from a continuously-updated model catalog — last updated September 28, 2026.
Who wins on what
Cheapest input tokens
$0.02/1MMistral AI
Mistral Nemo — $0.02/1M input
Cheapest output tokens
$0.04/1MMistral AI
Ministral 3B — $0.04/1M output
Longest context window
2.0MOpenAI
gpt-5.4 (>272K context length) — 2.0M input tokens
Lowest average output cost
$2.20/1MMistral AI
Provider-wide average across 88 models
Largest model catalog
133 modelsOpenAI
More options to match cost vs capability
Cheapest cached input
$0.01/1MOpenAI
GPT-6 Luna — $0.01/1M cached read
Most reasoning models
17 modelsOpenAI
Models with dedicated reasoning / thinking support
Most vision models
18 modelsOpenAI
Models that accept image input
Open-weights available
YesMistral AI
Offers open-weight models you can self-host
Side-by-side
OpenAI
Full OpenAI pricing →Cheapest input
$0.030
gpt-oss-20b
Cheapest output
$0.140
gpt-oss-20b
Longest context
2.0M
gpt-5.4 (>272K context length)
Avg output / 1M
$30.98
Across catalog
Cheapest cached input
$0.010
GPT-6 Luna
| Model | In/1M | Out/1M | Ctx |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-6 Sol VisionReasoningToolsCache | $2.00 | $10.00 | 1.1M |
| GPT-6 Luna VisionReasoningToolsCache | $0.100 | $0.500 | 1.1M |
| GPT-6 Astra VisionReasoningToolsCache | $10.00 | $50.00 | 1.1M |
| Daybreak Red VisionReasoningToolsCache | $12.50 | $75.00 | 400K |
| Daybreak Blue VisionReasoningToolsCache | $4.00 | $20.00 | 1.1M |
| gpt-oss-20b | $0.030 | $0.140 | 131K |
Mistral AI
Full Mistral AI pricing →Cheapest input
$0.020
Mistral Nemo
Cheapest output
$0.040
Ministral 3B
Longest context
1.0M
Zai Glm 5
Avg output / 1M
$2.20
Across catalog
Cheapest cached input
$0.140
GLM-5.2
| Model | In/1M | Out/1M | Ctx |
|---|---|---|---|
| GLM-5.3 ReasoningToolsCache | $1.40 | $4.40 | 1.0M |
| GLM-5.2 ReasoningToolsCache | $1.40 | $4.40 | 1.0M |
| Mistral Medium VisionReasoningTools | $1.50 | $7.50 | 262K |
| Mistral Medium 3.5 VisionReasoningTools | $1.50 | $7.50 | 262K |
| Mistral Small 4 VisionReasoningTools | $0.150 | $0.600 | 256K |
| Ministral 3B | $0.040 | $0.040 | 131K |
All prices in USD per 1 million tokens. Showing top 6 models per provider, sorted by output cost.
Frequently asked questions
Is OpenAI or Mistral AI cheaper?
Mistral AI has the cheaper entry point at $0.04/1M output (Ministral 3B — $0.04/1M output). Provider-wide, OpenAI averages $30.98/1M output against $2.20/1M for Mistral AI. Which is cheaper for you depends on which model tier your workload actually needs.
How much do OpenAI and Mistral AI cost per 1M tokens?
OpenAI starts at $0.140 per 1M output tokens (gpt-oss-20b), with its current flagship Daybreak Red at $75.00. Mistral AI starts at $0.040 (Ministral 3B), with Mistral Medium at $7.50. Input tokens cost less than output on both.
Which has the larger context window, OpenAI or Mistral AI?
OpenAI — gpt-5.4 (>272K context length) — 2.0M input tokens. For comparison, OpenAI's largest is 2.0M tokens (gpt-5.4 (>272K context length)) and Mistral AI's is 1.0M tokens (Zai Glm 5).
Which has more reasoning models, OpenAI or Mistral AI?
OpenAI lists 17 reasoning models and Mistral AI lists 7. Reasoning models bill their internal thinking as output tokens, so a reasoning call costs several times a standard completion of the same visible length — compare them on total tokens billed, not headline rate.
Can I self-host OpenAI or Mistral AI models?
Mistral AI publishes open-weight models you can run on your own hardware; OpenAI does not. Self-hosting swaps per-token pricing for GPU-hour cost, which usually only wins above sustained high utilisation — below that, hosted inference is cheaper.
Should I switch from OpenAI to Mistral AI to save money?
Only if the cheaper model still meets your quality bar. Token price is one input; the ones that decide your bill are prompt size, response length, retries and how much conversation history you resend each turn. Model the switch against your real traffic before committing. Prices here are current as of September 28, 2026.
Related comparisons
Run the numbers for your workload.
Calcaas multiplies per-token costs by your real usage patterns — inputs, outputs, retries, and conversation history — across both providers in one model.