Llama Guard 4 12B vs Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct
Llama Guard 4 12B (2025) and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct (2025) are compact production models from AI at Meta and MistralAI. Llama Guard 4 12B ships a 164k-token context window, while Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct ships a 128k-token context window. On pricing, Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct costs $0.10/1M input tokens versus $0.18/1M for the alternative. This comparison covers specs, pricing, API access, capabilities, benchmarks, input and output token costs, and production fit for coding and agent workloads.
Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct is ~80% cheaper at $0.10/1M; pay for Llama Guard 4 12B only for long-context analysis.
Decision scorecard
Local evidence first| Signal | Llama Guard 4 12B | Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | provider-routed production | multimodal apps and provider-routed production |
| Decision fit | RAG, Long context, and Classification | RAG, Long context, and Vision |
| Context window | 164k | 128k |
| Cheapest output | $0.18/1M tokens | $0.30/1M tokens |
| Provider routes | 3 tracked | 7 tracked |
| Shared benchmarks | 0 shared | 0 shared |
Decision tradeoffs
- Llama Guard 4 12B has the larger context window for long prompts, retrieval packs, or transcript analysis.
- Llama Guard 4 12B has the lower cheapest tracked output price at $0.18/1M tokens.
- Local decision data tags Llama Guard 4 12B for RAG, Long context, and Classification.
- Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct has broader tracked provider coverage for fallback and route flexibility.
- Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct uniquely exposes Vision and Multimodal in local model data.
- Local decision data tags Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct for RAG, Long context, and Vision.
Monthly cost at traffic
Estimate token spend from the cheapest tracked input and output route or tier on this page.
Llama Guard 4 12B
$189
Cheapest tracked route/tier: OpenRouter
Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct
$155
Cheapest tracked route/tier: Together AI
Estimated monthly gap: $34.00. Batch, cache, alternate speed tiers, and negotiated pricing are excluded from this local estimate.
Switch friction
- Provider overlap exists on OpenRouter and NVIDIA NIM; start route-level A/B tests there.
- Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct is $0.12/1M tokens higher on cheapest tracked output pricing, so quality gains need to justify the spend.
- Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct adds Vision and Multimodal in local capability data.
- Provider overlap exists on NVIDIA NIM and OpenRouter; start route-level A/B tests there.
- Llama Guard 4 12B is $0.12/1M tokens lower on cheapest tracked output pricing before cache, batch, or negotiated discounts.
- Check replacement coverage for Vision and Multimodal before moving production traffic.
Specs
| Specification | ||
|---|---|---|
| Released | 2025-04-05 | 2025-12-15 |
| Context window | 164k | 128k |
| Parameters | 12B | 24B |
| Architecture | Decoder Only | Decoder Only |
| License | Llama 2 Community | Apache 2.0OSI-approved |
| Openness | Open weights | Open source |
| Weights | Unknown | Unknown |
| Code | Unknown | Unknown |
| Commercial use | Commercial use: conditional | Commercial use: permitted |
| Knowledge cutoff | 2024-08 | 2023-10 |
Pricing and availability
| Pricing attribute | Llama Guard 4 12B | Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Input price | $0.18/1M tokens | $0.10/1M tokens |
| Output price | $0.18/1M tokens | $0.30/1M tokens |
| Providers |
Capabilities
| Capability | Llama Guard 4 12B | Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Vision | No | Yes |
| Multimodal | No | Yes |
| Reasoning | No | No |
| JSON / Tool use | No | No |
| Structured outputs | Yes | Yes |
| Code execution | No | No |
| IDE integration | No | No |
| Computer use | No | No |
| Parallel agents | No | No |
Benchmarks
No shared benchmark scores are currently available for this pair.
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Last reviewed: 2026-09-24. Data sourced from public model cards and provider documentation.