Choose Google: Gemma 3 12B if…
- cost matters at scale — it is 81% cheaper on a typical 3:1 input/output mix ($6.75 vs $35.00 a month for 50,000 support chats)
- you want to prototype at zero cost — a free variant is listed
Google: Gemma 3 12B vs Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch)
Neither wins outright: Google: Gemma 3 12B is the pick when cost matters at scale, Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch) when you need file / PDF input.
Key numbers
| Spec | Google: Gemma 3 12B | Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch) |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | |
| Input price (per 1M tokens) | $0.05 | $0.20 |
| Output price (per 1M tokens) | $0.15 | $1.00 |
| Blended price (3:1 input/output) | $0.08 | $0.40 |
| Cheaper than … of all models we track | 83% | 58% |
| Context window | 131K tokens (~197 pages) | 131K tokens (~197 pages) |
| Larger context than … of all models | 23% | 23% |
| Max output per response | 16K tokens (~12,300 words) | 105K tokens (~78,600 words) |
| Input types | text, image | text, image, file |
| Output types | text | text |
| Free variant | Yes | No |
| Listed since | 2025-03-13 | 2025-08-13 |
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What it costs for real workloads
Monthly cost at list price for five common workloads. Token counts per unit are stated so you can scale them to your own traffic. A workload that does not fit a model's context window is marked rather than priced.
| Workload (per month) | Google: Gemma 3 12B | Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer-support chatbot 50,000 conversations — each a 6-turn conversation (1,500 in / 400 out tokens) | $6.75 | $35.00 | Google: Gemma 3 12B saves $28.25 |
| RAG search over documents 20,000 questions — each a question answered from ~8 retrieved passages (6,000 in / 500 out tokens) | $7.50 | $34.00 | Google: Gemma 3 12B saves $26.50 |
| Coding / tool-using agent 2,000 tasks — each a multi-step task with tool calls and file context (60,000 in / 6,000 out tokens) | $7.80 | $36.00 | Google: Gemma 3 12B saves $28.20 |
| Batch summarisation 10,000 documents — each a 6,000-word report summarised to a page (8,000 in / 600 out tokens) | $4.90 | $22.00 | Google: Gemma 3 12B saves $17.10 |
| Long-document analysis 500 documents — each a 150-page contract or codebase read in one pass (100,000 in / 2,000 out tokens) | $2.65 | $11.00 | Google: Gemma 3 12B saves $8.35 |
Capabilities side by side
| Capability | Google: Gemma 3 12B | Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch) | What it lets you do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tool / function calling | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | call your APIs and run agent loops |
| Structured output (JSON schema) | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | return JSON that validates against your schema |
| Reasoning / thinking mode | — | — | spend extra tokens thinking before answering hard problems |
| Image input | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | read screenshots, charts and scanned pages |
| Audio input | — | — | take speech or audio directly |
| File / PDF input | — | ✓ Yes | accept documents without your own parsing step |
| Image output | — | — | generate images, not just text |
| Built-in web search | — | — | answer from live web results |
| Seed (reproducible sampling) | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | repeat a generation for tests and evals |
| Log-probabilities | — | — | read token confidence for classification and scoring |
From each model's published parameters and input/output types. “—” means not advertised, not proven absent.
Price history
- Google: Gemma 3 12B: input price raised 20% ($0.04 → $0.05/1M), output price raised 13% ($0.13 → $0.15/1M) on 2026-08-06.
- Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch): input price cut 50% ($0.40 → $0.20/1M), output price cut 50% ($2.00 → $1.00/1M) on 2026-09-10.
| Date | Model | Input / 1M | Output / 1M |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-10 | Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch) | $0.20 | $1.00 |
| 2026-08-06 | Google: Gemma 3 12B | $0.05 | $0.15 |
Which should you choose?
Choose Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch) if…
- you need file / PDF input — to accept documents without your own parsing step; Google: Gemma 3 12B does not advertise it
- you generate long outputs in one go — up to 105K tokens (about 78,600 words) per response
- you want the newer model — released 2025-08-13, 5 months after the other
Frequently asked questions
Is Google: Gemma 3 12B better than Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch)?
Neither wins outright: Google: Gemma 3 12B is the pick when cost matters at scale, Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch) when you need file / PDF input. In short: Google: Gemma 3 12B when cost matters at scale, you want to prototype at zero cost; Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch) when you need file / PDF input, you generate long outputs in one go, you want the newer model.
Which is cheaper, Google: Gemma 3 12B or Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch)?
Google: Gemma 3 12B is cheaper: $0.08 vs $0.40 per 1M tokens at a typical 3:1 input/output mix, 81% less. For 50,000 support conversations a month that is $6.75 against $35.00.
How much do Google: Gemma 3 12B and Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch) cost per million tokens?
Google: Gemma 3 12B costs $0.05 per 1M input tokens and $0.15 per 1M output tokens; Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch) costs $0.20 input and $1.00 output. Output tokens are billed separately, so long answers shift the gap.
Which has the bigger context window, Google: Gemma 3 12B or Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch)?
Both take 131K tokens per request — roughly 197 pages of text.
Do Google: Gemma 3 12B and Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch) support function calling and JSON output?
Tool calling — Google: Gemma 3 12B: yes, Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch): yes. JSON-schema structured output — Google: Gemma 3 12B: yes, Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch): yes.
Can Google: Gemma 3 12B or Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch) read images?
Yes, both accept image input.
Is Google: Gemma 3 12B or Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch) free to use?
Google: Gemma 3 12B has a free variant (google/gemma-3-12b-it:free). Free variants usually carry tighter rate limits.
What is the maximum output length of Google: Gemma 3 12B and Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch)?
Google: Gemma 3 12B can write up to 16K tokens (about 12,300 words) per response; Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch) up to 105K (about 78,600 words).
When were Google: Gemma 3 12B and Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch) released?
Google: Gemma 3 12B was listed on 2025-03-13; Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch) on 2025-08-13.
Has the price of Google: Gemma 3 12B or Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch) changed?
Google: Gemma 3 12B: input price raised 20% ($0.04 → $0.05/1M), output price raised 13% ($0.13 → $0.15/1M) on 2026-08-06. Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch): input price cut 50% ($0.40 → $0.20/1M), output price cut 50% ($2.00 → $1.00/1M) on 2026-09-10.
About the two models
Google: Gemma 3 12B
Gemma 3 introduces multimodality, supporting vision-language input and text outputs. It handles context windows up to 128k tokens, understands over 140 languages, and offers improved math, reasoning, and chat capabilities,...
Full Google: Gemma 3 12B specs →Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch)
Mistral Medium 3.1 is an updated version of Mistral Medium 3, which is a high-performance enterprise-grade language model designed to deliver frontier-level capabilities at significantly reduced operational cost. It balances...
Full Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch) specs →