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Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct Reference vs Mistral Small (24B) Instruct 25.01

On provider list prices, Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct Reference costs $0.20 per million input tokens against $0.10 for Mistral Small (24B) Instruct 25.01: effectively level. Output is $0.20 against $0.30 (1.5x). On Allocate both bill at list plus the 7% transaction fee.

Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct Reference Mistral Small (24B) Instruct 25.01
LabMetamistralai
AccessOpen weightsOpen weights
Context window8K tokens32K tokens
List price, input$0.2 / M tokens$0.1 / M tokens
List price, output$0.2 / M tokens$0.3 / M tokens
Cached inputn/an/a
LicenseLlama communityApache 2.0
Fine-tunableYesYes

Specifications and provider list prices from the Allocate catalog, checked 2026-07-08. Billed price is list plus the 7% transaction fee.

What the numbers say

Take 1,000,000 requests a month at 1,200 input and 350 output tokens each. That workload costs $225 a month on Mistral Small (24B) Instruct 25.01 and $310 on Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct Reference at list: a gap of $85, or 1.4x.

Mistral Small (24B) Instruct 25.01 reads 32K tokens per request against 8K for Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct Reference, 4.0x the window. That decides which one can take whole documents without splitting them.

Mistral Small (24B) Instruct 25.01$0.10$0.30
Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct Reference$0.20$0.20
InputOutput

Choose Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct Reference for

  • Training toward a model you own
Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct Reference details

Choose Mistral Small (24B) Instruct 25.01 for

  • The lower list price ($0.10 in / $0.30 out per M tokens)
  • The longer context window (32K vs 8K tokens)
  • Fine-tuning under a permissive license (Apache 2.0)
Mistral Small (24B) Instruct 25.01 details

Common questions

Which is cheaper, Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct Reference or Mistral Small (24B) Instruct 25.01?

Mistral Small (24B) Instruct 25.01, on this workload shape. At list prices it is $0.10/$0.30 per million tokens in and out against $0.20/$0.20 for Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct Reference. Billed on Allocate: $0.11/$0.32 against $0.21/$0.21, list plus 7%.

Which has the bigger context window?

Mistral Small (24B) Instruct 25.01: 32,768 tokens (32K) against 8,192 (8K) for Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct Reference.

Can I fine-tune Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct Reference or Mistral Small (24B) Instruct 25.01?

Both publish open weights (Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct Reference: Llama community; Mistral Small (24B) Instruct 25.01: Apache 2.0), so both can be fine-tuned. On Allocate the trained weights stay inside your boundary and belong to you.

Related comparisons

Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct Reference vs Llama Guard 4 12BMeta Llama 3 8B Instruct Reference vs Meta Llama 3.1 8BMeta Llama 3 8B Instruct Reference vs Meta Llama 3 8B InstructMeta Llama 3 8B Instruct Reference vs Mistral (7B) Instruct v0.1Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct Reference vs Mistral (7B) Instruct v0.3Mistral Small (24B) Instruct 25.01 vs Llama Guard 4 12B

Run the numbers on your workload

LLM price comparisonAgent cost calculatorMeta Llama 3 8B Instruct ReferenceMistral Small (24B) Instruct 25.01

Or don’t choose. On Allocate a route name is the contract: point yours at one model today, swap to the other tomorrow, and compare them on your live traffic with per-token metering.

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