# Mistral API Free Tier Still Exists: What Free Mode Covers Now

> As of October 9, 2026, Mistral's Free mode still issues API keys with no card, but the pricing page dropped its $10 monthly figure. Check your Limits page.

- Source: https://www.aifreeapi.com/en/posts/mistral-api-free-tier
- Language: en
- Published: 2026-10-09
- Updated: 2026-10-09
- Publisher: AI Free API (https://www.aifreeapi.com)

Yes, the Mistral API still has a free tier as of October 9, 2026. Mistral now calls it **Free mode**: every new account starts in it, you can create API keys without a credit card, and you get "included monthly usage within the limits shown on the Limits page" ([Mistral docs, Usage and limits](https://docs.mistral.ai/admin/billing-usage/usage-limits)).

What you can no longer count on is a published amount. Until the afternoon of October 7, 2026, Mistral's pricing page promised Free accounts "$10 /mo in API credits". Later that day the line was gone, with no announcement. Mistral has not said whether the allowance changed or only the page did. So the only reliable numbers are the ones on your own account's **Limits** page.

The short answers to the other two questions:

- **Mistral Large 4 on a free key:** probably not, though Mistral has not said so. Its launch post says "Available to all via API today," yet a developer on the Free plan reports that `mistral-large-4` answered "This model is not available in your subscription tier." even after adding $10 of credit. One test call with your key settles it for your account.
- **Running Large 4 locally for free:** Mistral plans to release the weights, as a final version rather than today's preview, by the end of October 2026. At 1.05 trillion total parameters, the weights alone take about 0.53 TB even at 4-bit. That is a multi-GPU server, not a desktop. For a $0 local setup, Ministral 3 and Small 4 are the realistic Mistral models.

## Is the Mistral API still free? Yes, as Free mode with unpublished caps

Free mode is the default state of every Mistral account. The [Studio quickstart](https://docs.mistral.ai/getting-started/quickstarts/studio/activate-and-generate-api-key) puts it plainly: "Free mode: API access is enabled by default with no credit card required. Usage and rate limits apply."

Three details decide how far a free account goes:

- **One allowance for everything.** Included monthly usage is shared across Studio, the API and Vibe Code, and it is consumed first ([Subscriptions docs](https://docs.mistral.ai/admin/billing-usage/subscriptions)). Heavy use of Vibe Code eats into what your API calls can use.
- **No overage by default.** When the included usage runs out and pay-as-you-go is off, "usage can stop until the next billing period or until an admin changes the settings."
- **Pay-as-you-go is a switch, not a plan.** Mistral's docs say it "is not a separate plan for the API." Turning it on keeps the same account and bills tokens beyond the included usage.

![Diagram: Studio, the API and Vibe Code draw on one included monthly usage pool with three rate caps; a 429 means a cap was crossed, and when the pool runs out usage stops unless pay-as-you-go bills per token](https://www.aifreeapi.com/posts/en/mistral-api-free-tier/img/free-mode-allowance.webp)

The consumer app (Vibe, formerly Le Chat) shares the same account plan, but its Free plan limits on messages, web searches and coding sessions describe the app only. API calls go through keys you create in Studio and count against the Limits page.

## What changed on October 7, 2026: the $10 API credit line disappeared

The free tier has been renamed and reshaped several times, which is why numbers online disagree.

| Date | What Mistral published | Status now |
| --- | --- | --- |
| September 17, 2024 | Free API tier launched on La Plateforme "for experimentation, evaluation, and prototyping at no cost" ([announcement](https://mistral.ai/news/september-24-release)) | History |
| 2024 to mid-2026 | The "Experiment" plan, with figures such as about 1 request per second, 500,000 tokens per minute and 1 billion tokens per month | Help and docs pages for it now return 404 |
| August 2, 2026 | Pricing page shows no API credit on any plan ([archived capture](https://web.archive.org/web/20260802054807/https://mistral.ai/pricing/)) | History |
| September 1 to October 7, 2026 (14:48 UTC) | Free card: "Test Mistral models in Studio. $10 /mo in API credits." Pro: $30 per month in API credits ([archived capture](https://web.archive.org/web/20261007144814/https://mistral.ai/pricing/)) | Replaced |
| October 7, 2026, by 22:04 UTC | Free card lists Vibe features only. Pro drops to "$25.5 /mo in API credits" ([archived capture](https://web.archive.org/web/20261007220416/https://mistral.ai/pricing/)) | Current on October 9 |

A third-party deal tracker logged the same change and narrows it to that eight-hour window ([agentdeals issue #2510](https://github.com/robhunter/agentdeals/issues/2510)). The live [pricing page](https://mistral.ai/pricing/) FAQ still says "On the Free plan, you also get access to Mistral Studio," and the docs still describe included monthly usage for Free mode. Two readings fit those facts: the allowance still exists but is no longer printed, or it was cut. Nothing public settles which.

If you read "1 billion tokens per month" or "Experiment tier" anywhere, treat it as the pre-2026 plan. No current Mistral page states those figures. Posts dated after October 7 that say the Free plan "includes $10/month in API credits" are repeating the old pricing card.

## Mistral Free mode rate limits: three caps, shown only on your Limits page

Mistral does not publish numeric limits for Free mode. Its help article on [API rate limits](https://help.mistral.ai/en/articles/698531-why-am-i-hitting-api-rate-limits-and-how-do-i-increase-them) (dated August 12, 2026) says Free mode "has the lowest limits, intended for evaluation and prototyping," and that every organization has three:

- **Requests per second** (concurrent requests)
- **Tokens per minute** (input plus output)
- **Tokens per month** (overall consumption)

A `429 Too Many Requests` response means you crossed one of them. Limits are set per organization, apply across all its workspaces, and are applied per model, so two models on the same account can have different caps. When Mistral retires a model version and you move to the replacement, check the new model's row.

Your real numbers live in **Admin Panel › API › Limits**. Usage and cost breakdowns sit next door in **Admin Panel › API › Usage**.

Paying raises the caps through usage tiers, based on what you have actually been billed:

| Tier | How you reach it |
| --- | --- |
| Free mode | Default |
| Tier 1 | Turn on pay-as-you-go |
| Tier 2 | Over $20 (or €20) billed |
| Tier 3 | Over $100 billed |
| Tier 4 | Over $500 billed |
| Higher limits | Over $2,000 billed, then contact support |

Prepaid credits do not count. Mistral states that "adding credits does not raise your rate limits"; only billed usage moves you up.

## How to get a free Mistral API key and test it in five minutes

1. Create a Mistral account and open the Studio console.
2. Go to **API Keys** in the left sidebar and click **Create new key**.
3. Give it a name, set an expiration date, and pick a connector scope ("Shared connectors only" is enough for plain API calls).
4. Copy the key immediately. Mistral shows the full key only once.
5. Before you send anything private, open **Admin panel › Privacy** and switch off **Anonymous improvement data**. On Free mode, Mistral "may use your data (input and output) to train" its models unless you opt out ([help article](https://help.mistral.ai/en/articles/347617-do-you-use-my-user-data-to-train-your-artificial-intelligence-models)). The Vibe toggle is separate and does not cover the API.

One third-party setup guide reports that email signups may be asked to verify a phone number by SMS before Free mode works ([anarlog](https://anarlog.so/blog/mistral-api-key/)). Mistral's own quickstart does not mention it.

Then send the test request from Mistral's quickstart:

```bash
export MISTRAL_API_KEY="your-key-here"

curl https://api.mistral.ai/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $MISTRAL_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "mistral-small-latest",
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello, Mistral!"}]
  }'
```

A JSON reply with a `choices` array means the key works for that model. Anything else tells you where to look:

| Response | Most likely cause | What to do |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `200` with a reply | The key can call this model on your current plan | Watch consumption in **API › Usage** |
| `429 Too Many Requests` | One of the three caps was crossed | Slow down for per-second and per-minute caps; for the monthly cap, wait for the next period or turn on pay-as-you-go |
| `401` | The key was rejected. A key made as a plan key under **Code › Vibe Code CLI** draws on the Vibe budget and can stop when that budget runs out | Create a fresh key under **API Keys** in the Studio console; Mistral recommends console keys for API automation |
| "This model is not available in your subscription tier." (reported as HTTP `403`) | Your plan does not include that model. The key is valid and no rate cap was hit | Pick a model your plan includes, or change plan; retrying or making a new key will not help |
| Another error naming the model | The ID is wrong or the model is retired | Check the ID against the [models list](https://docs.mistral.ai/models) and look for the model on your Limits page |

## Which models work on a free Mistral API key?

Mistral does not publish a list of free models. Its [models overview](https://docs.mistral.ai/models) and [pricing page](https://docs.mistral.ai/inference/pricing) show no "Free mode" badge or free column for any chat model. Under Free mode, a model call draws on your included usage. The question is which models your organization can call, and your Limits page answers it model by model.

The current lineup, as of October 9, 2026, covers Mistral Large 4 (preview), Large 3, Medium 3.5, Small 4, Ministral 3 in 14B, 8B and 3B sizes, Codestral, OCR 4.1, the Voxtral audio family, Mistral Moderation 2 and Shieldstral 1.0. Moderation 2 is the one model the pricing page lists as free outright.

Several names that still show up in "free Mistral model" lists are retired: Mistral Small 3.2, Devstral 2 and Mistral Nemo 12B (all on July 31, 2026), Mistral Medium 3.1 (August 31, 2026) and Mistral Large 2.1 (May 31, 2026). They are no longer in the current lineup, so move code that still names them to a current model ID.

If you only need a free API with published per-model rows, the [Gemini API free tier](/en/posts/google-gemini-api-free-tier) documents its free models by ID. Mistral leaves the numbers to your account dashboard.

## Can you use Mistral Large 4 on the free tier? Reports say no; test once

Mistral's own wording and user reports point in opposite directions, and Mistral has not settled it. The official [launch post on X](https://x.com/MistralAI/status/2107457414387622310) (October 6, 2026) says Large 4 is "Available to all via API today," but it does not say which plans. No Mistral page says whether a Free mode key can call `mistral-large-4`. The reports so far:

- On October 7, a developer on the Free plan [posted on X](https://x.com/jeremychone/status/2107877695195582607) that he added $10 of credit, created an API key, and got "This model is not available in your subscription tier." from `mistral-large-4`. As of October 9, Mistral has not replied. A public GitHub project merged code on October 9 that treats the same message as an HTTP 403 "subscription tier" error and falls back to other models ([jobsearch PR #110](https://github.com/klocekian/jobsearch/pull/110)).
- An automated free-tier tracker logged on October 7, 2026 that "Mistral Large 4 is no longer listed as free on Mistral AI (Free mode)" ([FreeTier_Radar issue #10](https://github.com/Calmer26/FreeTier_Radar/issues/10)). It pointed at Mistral's models page, which as of October 9 shows no free badge for any model.
- An r/MistralAI thread from early October 2026, titled "Are we going to ignore that mistral removed free tier?", has 30+ comments. One commenter says Mistral "still has not restored free tier after like over a month."

These are one user, one code change, one tracker and one forum thread. They agree with each other, but none is a Mistral statement. Adding prepaid credit did not change the result in the reported case, which suggests the block depends on the plan rather than the balance.

The way to know for your account: rerun the curl request above with `"model": "mistral-large-4"`, then check whether Large 4 has a row on your Limits page. A reply means your key can use it. "This model is not available in your subscription tier." means your plan excludes the model. It is not a rate limit, so waiting will not help, and it is not a bad key, so a new key will not help either. A `429` would mean the model is included but you hit a cap.

Before you send real work to it, read the data terms. Large 4 carries a "Public Preview" label on its [model card](https://docs.mistral.ai/models/mistral-large-4). Mistral's [Commercial Terms of Service](https://legal.mistral.ai/terms/commercial-terms-of-service) (sections 4.2 and 4.3) say that for "Labs or Preview Models", Mistral may train on your inputs and outputs, and that opt-out settings, including zero data retention, do not apply. The same section reserves those models for commercial customers and professional use. Mistral has not explicitly said the Large 4 preview falls under that clause, but the label points that way. Use test prompts you would be comfortable seeing in training data.

The model itself, from Mistral's documentation and [launch post](https://mistral.ai/news/mistral-large-4):

| Item | Mistral Large 4 (preview) |
| --- | --- |
| API model ID | `mistral-large-4` (version 26.10) |
| Preview since | October 6, 2026 |
| Parameters | 1.05T total, 52B active, plus a 1.6B vision encoder (the blog post rounds to "1 trillion") |
| Context window | 1M tokens |
| List price per 1M tokens | $1.36 input, $0.14 cached input, $4.18 output |
| Launch price per 1M tokens | $0.68 input, $0.07 cached input, $2.09 output (50% off for two weeks from October 6, so until about October 20) |

If you see "49B active," that comes from Mistral itself: the @MistralAI launch post and co-founder [Guillaume Lample's post](https://x.com/GuillaumeLample/status/2107461898127954001) on X both say "1T parameters" with "49B active," while the model card and blog say 52B. Mistral has not explained the difference, which may come from what each count includes. The 675B figure that circulates belongs to Mistral Large 3, not Large 4.

If the free key refuses Large 4, a paid test costs little, assuming your paid plan or pay-as-you-go includes the model. A month with 1 million input tokens and 250,000 output tokens costs 1 × $0.68 + 0.25 × $2.09 ≈ $1.20 at the launch price, or 1 × $1.36 + 0.25 × $4.18 ≈ $2.41 at list price. Change the token counts to match your own workload.

## Run Large 4 locally after the weights ship: about 0.53 TB even at 4-bit

Running Large 4 yourself will cost nothing in API fees, but it needs server hardware, and the license is still unknown.

What Mistral has said: the launch post promises the weights "by the end of the month" while the model is red-teamed with security firms, vetted partners and state authorities; its X post says "Open weights release end of October." Some outlets report October 27, but Mistral has not named a day. The download will not be the model you can call today. Co-founder Guillaume Lample says the reinforcement-learning run behind the preview "is still in flight" and that Mistral "will release a final version before the end of the month along with the weights of the model." The model card's weights tab says "Coming soon" and links to `mistralai/Mistral-Large-4-1T-A52B` on Hugging Face. The card shows an "OPEN" badge but names no license, and its GPU memory field reads N/A.

Until Mistral fills in that field, the memory need can be estimated two ways.

**From the parameter count.** Weights alone, before the KV cache and runtime overhead:

- BF16 (2 bytes per parameter): 1.05T × 2 ≈ 2.1 TB
- FP8 (1 byte): 1.05T × 1 ≈ 1.05 TB
- 4-bit (half a byte): 1.05T × 0.5 ≈ 0.53 TB

**From Mistral's own figure for Large 3.** Large 3's card lists 1,800 GB at BF16 with full context down to 360 GB at FP4 with reduced context. Scaling by 1.05T ÷ 675B ≈ 1.56 gives roughly 2,800 GB down to 560 GB for Large 4.

These are estimates, not Mistral numbers. Both point the same way. A 24 GB graphics card holds under 5% of the 4-bit weights (24 ÷ 530 ≈ 4.5%), and even a single machine with 512 GB of unified memory falls short once you add usable context. Expect a multi-GPU server node. The 52B active parameters reduce compute per token. They do not shrink memory, because every expert still has to be loaded.

![Bar chart of minimum GPU memory: Large 4 estimates near 530–560 GB pass a 512 GB machine, Large 3 needs 360 GB, and Ministral 3 models need 5–11 GB, under a 24 GB graphics card](https://www.aifreeapi.com/posts/en/mistral-api-free-tier/img/large-4-local-memory.webp)

Mistral's official minimum GPU memory for its other open-weight models, from each model card ("BF16 & full context" down to "FP4" with reduced context):

| Model | Total / active parameters | Official GPU memory range | License |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Mistral Large 4 | 1.05T / 52B | Not published yet ("N/A") | Not named yet |
| Mistral Large 3 | 675B / 41B | 1,800–360 GB | Apache 2.0 |
| Mistral Medium 3.5 | 128B dense | 256–64 GB | Modified MIT |
| Mistral Small 4 | 119B / 6.5B | 238–60 GB | Apache 2.0 |
| Ministral 3 14B | 14B dense | 93–11 GB | Apache 2.0 |
| Ministral 3 8B | 8B dense | 67–8 GB | Apache 2.0 |
| Ministral 3 3B | 3B dense | 43–5 GB | Apache 2.0 |

The low end of each range assumes FP4 weights and a much shorter context than the model's 256K maximum. Plan on the upper part of the range if you need long prompts.

"Free" also depends on the license. Large 3, Small 4 and Ministral 3 ship under Apache 2.0, which allows commercial use. Large 4's terms are unknown until the weights appear, so don't build a product plan on it yet.

## Free local alternatives: Ministral 3 and Small 4 on your own hardware

If the goal is $0 per token on hardware you already own, Mistral's smaller open-weight models are the practical choice today:

- **Ministral 3 3B and 8B** need about 5 GB and 8 GB at FP4 with reduced context. That fits a mid-range consumer GPU or a laptop with enough unified memory.
- **Ministral 3 14B** needs about 11 GB at FP4, so a 12 GB or 16 GB card can hold it with short context.
- **Mistral Small 4** (119B total, 6.5B active) starts at about 60 GB at FP4. That is workstation territory rather than a gaming PC.

For the quantization trade-offs of running a large Mixture-of-Experts model on one box, the guide to [running Qwen3.8-Flash-Next locally with Unsloth](/en/posts/qwen3-8-flash-next-unsloth-local) walks through memory and quant choices. For coding agents on consumer hardware, see [whether Qwen3.8-27B is the best local LLM for agentic coding](/en/posts/qwen3-8-27b-local-agentic-coding).

## When Free mode is not enough: Education, Pro or pay-as-you-go

Once the free allowance runs dry, you have three paid routes on the same account. The [pricing page](https://mistral.ai/pricing/) lists these as of October 9, 2026:

| Route | Monthly price | API credit included | Fits |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Education | $5.99 for verified students (up to 12 months) | $15 per month | Students who want a fixed budget |
| Pro | $14.99 | $25.50 per month (down from $30 on October 7) | Individuals who also use Vibe |
| Pay-as-you-go | No subscription | None; billed per token | Apps with uneven traffic, and anyone who needs Tier 1+ rate limits |

Plan credits are shared with Vibe Code like the free allowance. Pay-as-you-go is what unlocks the higher rate-limit tiers.

Per-token prices, standard tier, per 1 million tokens (input / output), from the [API pricing page](https://docs.mistral.ai/inference/pricing):

| Model | Input | Output |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Ministral 3 3B | $0.10 | $0.10 |
| Ministral 3 8B | $0.15 | $0.15 |
| Mistral Small 4 | $0.15 | $0.60 |
| Ministral 3 14B | $0.20 | $0.20 |
| Mistral Large 3 | $0.50 | $1.50 |
| Mistral Large 4 (preview, list) | $1.36 | $4.18 |
| Mistral Medium 3.5 | $1.50 | $7.50 |
| Mistral Moderation 2 | Free | Free |

At these prices, the same example month of 1 million input and 250,000 output tokens costs $0.15 + 0.25 × $0.60 = $0.30 on Small 4. If you are weighing Mistral against other low-cost providers, [when switching away from Gemini saves money](/en/posts/best-gemini-api-alternative-free-tier) compares Small 4 with other options.

## Mistral free API questions

### Is the Mistral API completely free?

No. Free mode lets you create keys and call the API without paying, but only within a monthly allowance and the lowest rate limits. Beyond that, usage stops until the next billing period unless you turn on pay-as-you-go.

### Is Mistral no longer free?

It still is, as of October 9, 2026. On October 7, Mistral removed the "$10 /mo in API credits" line from the Free card on its pricing page without explaining why. The docs still describe Free mode with included monthly usage. Your Limits and Usage pages show what your account actually gets.

### What happened to the Mistral Experiment plan?

It was the old name for the free API tier. Its help and docs pages now return 404, and the default free state is called Free mode. Experiment-era figures like 1 billion tokens per month are no longer published anywhere by Mistral.

### Does Mistral Large 4 count as open source?

Not yet in any verifiable sense. Mistral calls it "open-weight" and promises the weights of a final version by the end of October 2026, but the license has not been named. Until it is, you cannot tell whether commercial self-hosting is allowed.

### Do prepaid credits raise Mistral's API rate limits?

No. Rate-limit tiers follow cumulative billed usage on pay-as-you-go. Topping up credits adds money to the balance but leaves your tier unchanged.