Mistral Large vs Qwen2.5-72B-Instruct
Mistral Large (2024) and Qwen2.5-72B-Instruct (2024) are compact production models from MistralAI and Alibaba. Mistral Large ships a 32k-token context window, while Qwen2.5-72B-Instruct ships a 128k-token context window. On pricing, Qwen2.5-72B-Instruct costs $0.18/1M input tokens versus $0.32/1M 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.
Qwen2.5-72B-Instruct is ~78% cheaper at $0.18/1M; pay for Mistral Large only for vision-heavy evaluation.
Decision scorecard
Local evidence first| Signal | Mistral Large | Qwen2.5-72B-Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | multimodal apps, tool-calling agents, and provider-routed production | provider-routed production |
| Decision fit | Agents, Vision, and Classification | Coding, RAG, and Long context |
| Context window | 32k | 128k |
| Cheapest output | $0.96/1M tokens | $0.54/1M tokens |
| Provider routes | 8 tracked | 8 tracked |
| Shared benchmarks | 0 shared | 0 shared |
Decision tradeoffs
- Mistral Large uniquely exposes Vision and JSON / Tool use in local model data.
- Local decision data tags Mistral Large for Agents, Vision, and Classification.
- Qwen2.5-72B-Instruct has the larger context window for long prompts, retrieval packs, or transcript analysis.
- Qwen2.5-72B-Instruct has the lower cheapest tracked output price at $0.54/1M tokens.
- Local decision data tags Qwen2.5-72B-Instruct for Coding, RAG, and Long context.
Monthly cost at traffic
Estimate token spend from the cheapest tracked input and output route or tier on this page.
Mistral Large
$496
Cheapest tracked route/tier: GCP Vertex AI
Qwen2.5-72B-Instruct
$279
Cheapest tracked route/tier: Chutes AI
Estimated monthly gap: $217. Batch, cache, alternate speed tiers, and negotiated pricing are excluded from this local estimate.
Switch friction
- Provider overlap exists on OpenRouter and Fireworks AI; start route-level A/B tests there.
- Qwen2.5-72B-Instruct is $0.42/1M tokens lower on cheapest tracked output pricing before cache, batch, or negotiated discounts.
- Check replacement coverage for Vision and JSON / Tool use before moving production traffic.
- Provider overlap exists on OpenRouter and Fireworks AI; start route-level A/B tests there.
- Mistral Large is $0.42/1M tokens higher on cheapest tracked output pricing, so quality gains need to justify the spend.
- Mistral Large adds Vision and JSON / Tool use in local capability data.
Specs
| Specification | ||
|---|---|---|
| Released | 2024-02-08 | 2024-06-07 |
| Context window | 32k | 128k |
| Parameters | 123B | 72.7B |
| Architecture | - | Decoder Only |
| License | Mistral License | Apache 2.0OSI-approved |
| Openness | Open weights | Open source |
| Weights | Unknown | Available |
| Code | Unknown | Unknown |
| Commercial use | Commercial use: non-commercial | Commercial use: permitted |
| Knowledge cutoff | 2024-03 | - |
Pricing and availability
| Pricing attribute | Mistral Large | Qwen2.5-72B-Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Input price | $0.32/1M tokens | $0.18/1M tokens |
| Output price | $0.96/1M tokens | $0.54/1M tokens |
| Providers |
Capabilities
| Capability | Mistral Large | Qwen2.5-72B-Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Vision | Yes | No |
| Multimodal | No | No |
| Reasoning | No | No |
| JSON / Tool use | Yes | 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: 2026-10-05. Data sourced from public model cards and provider documentation.