Mistral AI vs OpenRouter
Same workloads, both price lists, refreshed daily. On shared line items today: Mistral AI is cheaper on 2 of 8 shared models (input or output price), OpenRouter on 2.
Mistral AI
European frontier lab with strong small/medium models (and EU data processing), first-party API plus open weights you can self-host commercially..
- EU-based processing
- Open weights for self-hosting
- Strong small models
OpenRouter
One API key for 340+ models across every major provider, with automatic failover and pass-through pricing. The fastest way to hedge provider risk or A/B models without new integrations.
- 340+ models, one integration
- Automatic provider failover
- Pass-through pricing, small platform fee
Shared models, priced by both
List prices refreshed 2026-08-23 ยท input $/1M tokens| Model | Mistral AI in/out | OpenRouter in/out | Cheaper input |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mistral Small 4 | $0.100 / $0.300 | $0.150 / $0.600 | Mistral AI |
| Ministral 8B | $0.150 / $0.150 | $0.150 / $0.150 | tie |
| Codestral 2508 | $0.300 / $0.900 | $0.300 / $0.900 | tie |
| Devstral-2512 | $0.400 / $2.00 | $0.150 / $0.600 | OpenRouter |
| Mistral Medium 3.1 | $0.400 / $2.00 | $0.400 / $2.00 | tie |
| Mistral Large | $0.500 / $1.50 | $8.00 / $24.00 | Mistral AI |
| GLM-5.2 | $1.40 / $4.40 | $0.966 / $3.04 | OpenRouter |
| Mistral Medium 3.5 | $1.50 / $7.50 | $1.50 / $7.50 | tie |
Cheaper-on-count is a tally of listed prices, not a quality verdict: throughput, reliability and quantization differ between providers. Disclosure.