# Llama Guard 4 12B vs Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct

On provider list prices, Llama Guard 4 12B costs $0.20 per million input tokens against $0.20 for Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct: effectively level. Output is $0.20 against $0.20. On Allocate both bill at list plus the 7% transaction fee.

## Specifications

| | Llama Guard 4 12B | Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Lab | Meta | Meta |
| Access | Open weights | Open weights |
| Context window | 1M tokens | 8K tokens |
| List price, input | $0.20 / M tokens | $0.20 / M tokens |
| List price, output | $0.20 / M tokens | $0.20 / M tokens |
| Cached input | n/a | n/a |
| License | Llama community | Llama community |
| Fine-tunable | Yes | Yes |

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 $310 a month on Llama Guard 4 12B and $310 on Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct at list: a gap of $0.

Llama Guard 4 12B reads 1M tokens per request against 8K for Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct, 128.0x the window. That decides which one can take whole documents without splitting them.

## Choose Llama Guard 4 12B for

- The longer context window (1M vs 8K tokens)

## Choose Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct for

- Training toward a model you own

## Common questions

### Which is cheaper, Llama Guard 4 12B or Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct?

Llama Guard 4 12B, on this workload shape. At list prices it is $0.20/$0.20 per million tokens in and out against $0.20/$0.20 for Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct. Billed on Allocate: $0.21/$0.21 against $0.21/$0.21, list plus 7%.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Llama Guard 4 12B: 1,048,576 tokens (1M) against 8,192 (8K) for Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct.

### Can I fine-tune Llama Guard 4 12B or Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct?

Both publish open weights (Llama Guard 4 12B: Llama community; Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct: Llama community), so both can be fine-tuned. On Allocate the trained weights stay inside your boundary and belong to you.

---

[HTML page](https://allocate.network/compare/meta-llama-guard-4-12b-vs-meta-meta-llama-3-8b-instruct) · [Llama Guard 4 12B](https://allocate.network/models/meta-llama-guard-4-12b.md) · [Meta Llama 3 8B Instruct](https://allocate.network/models/meta-meta-llama-3-8b-instruct.md) · [Machine-readable catalog](https://allocate.network/catalog.json)