Model comparison
Pixtral 12B (24.09) vs Grok 2
- Input
- $0.15 / 1M tokens
- Output
- $0.15 / 1M tokens
- Context
- 128K tokens (131,072)
- Released
- 2024-09-17
- Input
- $2.00
- Output
- $10.00
- Context
- 131K
- Released
- 2024-08-20
Grok 2 scores higher on 6 of the 6 benchmarks both models report; Pixtral 12B (24.09) is cheaper on input tokens ($0.2 vs $2 per 1M, 13.3×); Grok 2 has the larger context window (131K vs 128K).
Specs and pricing side by side
| Spec | Pixtral 12B (24.09) | Grok 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Mistral AI | xAI (Grok) |
| Released | 2024-09-17 | 2024-08-20 |
| Context window | 128K tokens (131,072) | 131K |
| Max output | Not separately published by Mistral | not published |
| Input price | $0.15 / 1M tokens | $2.00 |
| Output price | $0.15 / 1M tokens | $10.00 |
| Parameters | ~12B decoder + ~400M vision encoder (~12.4B total) | 270B total · 115B active (mixture-of-experts) |
| License | Apache 2.0 | Grok 2 Community License Agreement (source-available) |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weightssame |
| Modalities | text, image | Text, Vision |
| Knowledge cutoff | Not officially published by Mistral | not published |
Benchmarks both models report
| Benchmark | Pixtral 12B (24.09) | Grok 2 |
|---|---|---|
| MMMU | 52% | 66.1% |
| MathVista | 58.3% | 69% |
| DocVQA | 90.7% | 93.6% |
| MMLU | 69.2% | 87.5% |
| HumanEval | 72% | 88.4% |
| MATH | 48.1% | 76.1% |
Scores are as published by each maker or its cited source; harness, reasoning effort and date can differ between rows, so treat small gaps as ties. Sources are listed on each model page.
Which one should you pick?
Pick Pixtral 12B (24.09) if…
- Cost matters: input tokens cost 13.3× less ($0.2 vs $2 per 1M).
- You need text / image input, which Grok 2 lacks.
- Your use case is: document and form understanding (OCR-style extraction, document QA).
Pick Grok 2 if…
- You care about MMMU, MathVista, DocVQA (it scores higher on 6 shared benchmarks).
- You need the longer context (131K vs 128K).
- You need Text / Vision input, which Pixtral 12B (24.09) lacks.
- Your use case is: general-purpose chat and reasoning assistants (Grok on X).
FAQ
Which is better, Pixtral 12B (24.09) or Grok 2?
Grok 2 scores higher on 6 of the 6 benchmarks both models report; Pixtral 12B (24.09) is cheaper on input tokens ($0.2 vs $2 per 1M, 13.3×); Grok 2 has the larger context window (131K vs 128K). The better pick depends on whether you value benchmark scores, price per token, context length or openness for your workload.
How much cheaper is Pixtral 12B (24.09)?
Pixtral 12B (24.09): $0.15 / 1M tokens input, $0.15 / 1M tokens output. Grok 2: $2.00 input, $10.00 output (list API prices as published by each maker).
What are the context windows of Pixtral 12B (24.09) and Grok 2?
Pixtral 12B (24.09) offers 128K tokens (131,072) with up to Not separately published by Mistral output; Grok 2 offers 131K.
Is Pixtral 12B (24.09) newer than Grok 2?
Pixtral 12B (24.09) was released 2024-09-17; Grok 2 was released 2024-08-20.