// Verified spec and rate reference, last updated August 2026

Mistral OCR: Mistral OCR API and Mistral OCR 4 Specs, Mistral Document AI Pricing and Limits

Mistral OCR 4 costs $4.00 per 1,000 pages, Mistral Document AI $5.00, and batch halves both. Mistral also publishes a third, cheaper OCR rate of $3.00 that almost every guide misses, because it belongs to a different product. Every number and parameter below came from Mistral's own pricing payload and documentation, read in August 2026.

  • Both published OCR rates, and which one you actually pay
  • The +10% you pay for regional inference
  • Every response field, including confidence scores
  • The parameter that silently returns nothing
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Encrypted in transit and at rest
256-bit encryption
US data handling
Fields, not just text
$4.00
per 1,000 pages, Mistral OCR 4
$5.00
per 1,000 pages, Document AI
$3.00
per 1,000 pages, Libraries OCR
40+
languages, per Mistral's docs
// The short answer

What Mistral OCR is, and what it costs

Mistral OCR is a document understanding model from Mistral AI that reads a page and returns markdown, tables, bounding boxes, block labels and confidence scores. The current version is Mistral OCR 4, reached through the alias mistral-ocr-latest. Calling it directly costs $4.00 per 1,000 pages. Mistral Document AI, which is the same model plus document annotations that return JSON fields against a schema you define, costs $5.00 per 1,000 pages. Batch processing takes 50% off both. The model is API-only: Mistral publishes open weights for several text models but not for this one, so you cannot self-host it.

Where the numbers came from

Mistral's pricing page is a JavaScript application, so the rates are not in the text of the page. They are in a data attribute the page renders from, which is where these came from on 12 August 2026. Specs and limits come from Mistral's own documentation the same day.

Rates move. Two of the figures on this page contradict what most third-party guides publish, so check the source before you budget.

// The part everyone gets wrong

Mistral publishes two different OCR rates per 1,000 pages

On the same pricing page, in two different sections, Mistral lists OCR at $4.00 per 1,000 pages and OCR at $3.00 per 1,000 pages. Both are real and current. They are not a mistake and they are not a volume tier. They belong to two different products, and the cheaper one is not the OCR API.

Product Meter Rate per 1,000 pages What it actually buys
OCR 4 API OCR $4.00 mistral-ocr-latest called directly. Text, tables, blocks, confidence scores.
OCR 4 API Document AI $5.00 The same model with document annotations, so you get JSON fields against your schema.
Libraries (agent tool) OCR $3.00 OCR on documents you ingest into a Library. Cheapest published rate, but see the two extra meters.
Libraries (agent tool) Indexing $1.00 per 1M tokens Charged on the text extracted at ingest, not per page.
Libraries (agent tool) Call $0.01 per call Charged every time an agent queries the Library.

Why the $3.00 rate is not the bargain it looks like

Libraries is Mistral's document store for agents. You upload documents, Mistral OCRs and indexes them, and an agent queries them later. The $3.00 covers the OCR step at ingest, and it is genuinely $1.00 per 1,000 pages cheaper than calling the OCR API. Then two more meters start: $1.00 per million tokens to index the text that OCR just produced, and $0.01 for every retrieval call an agent makes.

For a retrieval application you were building anyway, that is a reasonable bundle. As a trick to save a dollar per thousand pages on a one-off extraction batch, it is a false economy: the indexing and per-call charges can pass the dollar you saved quickly, and you get a searchable corpus rather than the structured response you wanted.

Which rate applies to you

  • Calling ocr.process on your own documents: $4.00 per 1,000 pages.
  • Passing a schema and wanting JSON fields back: $5.00 per 1,000 pages.
  • Ingesting documents into a Library for an agent to search: $3.00 plus indexing plus per-call.
  • Running any of it as an overnight batch: take 50% off.

Read the meter names on your own Mistral invoice to confirm which line you are billed on. A published rate card tells you what exists, not what your account is charged.

// Rate modifiers

The discounts and the surcharge on Mistral OCR pricing

Two of these move the per-page rate and one of them moves it the wrong way. The regional inference surcharge is the one to watch, because the reason you would turn it on is usually a compliance requirement rather than a preference.

Batch processing

50% less

OCR 4 in batch works out at $2.00 per 1,000 pages. Mistral applies this across the API.

Regional inference (global or EU endpoint)

10% more

Pinning inference to a region for data-residency reasons costs extra, it does not cost the same.

Cached input tokens

90% less on input tokens

Applies to token-priced models. OCR is priced per page, so this does nothing for OCR.

// Version behavior

Which Mistral OCR features need Mistral OCR 4

Mistral gates newer output features to newer model snapshots, and one of those gates fails quietly. If you pass include_blocks to a model older than OCR 4, the docs say it is accepted and returns an empty array. No error, no warning, just no blocks. That is a long afternoon if you do not know it.

Capability Minimum model Notes
Text and markdown output Any OCR model The baseline. Returns markdown per page.
Image bounding boxes Any OCR model Figure and image regions with coordinates.
table_format (markdown or html) OCR 2512 or newer Tables returned separately in the format you ask for.
extract_header, extract_footer OCR 2512 or newer Otherwise headers and footers stay inside the main content.
include_blocks (block labels and boxes) OCR 4 (mistral-ocr-4-0) or newer ‼️ Older models accept the parameter and return an empty array, not an error.
confidence_scores_granularity Current OCR models Page-level aggregates, or per-word values.

Pin a snapshot id such as mistral-ocr-4-0 in production if you need a parameter's behavior to stay fixed. The mistral-ocr-latest alias moves when Mistral ships a new version.

// Output specification

What does Mistral OCR return?

Mistral OCR returns one object per page. Markdown is the default payload; everything else is opt-in through a parameter, which is why so many integrations only ever see the text.

Field Type Contents
markdown string The page content as markdown, with reading order preserved.
tables list Returned separately when table_format is set to markdown or html.
hyperlinks list Links detected on the page.
header, footer string or null Populated when extract_header or extract_footer is true.
dimensions dict The page dimensions.
confidence_scores dict or null average_page_confidence_score, minimum_page_confidence_score, and word_confidence_scores at word granularity.
blocks list or null Paragraph-level bounding boxes with block labels, in reading order, when include_blocks is true.
document_annotation dict or null The structured JSON fields when you pass a schema.
usage_info dict What the request consumed, which is what you are billed on.

The 13 block labels

With include_blocks=True, every content region on the page comes back in reading order with a bounding box and one of these labels:

text title list table image equation caption code references aside_text header footer signature

A signature label is more useful than it sounds. Knowing whether a signature block exists on a page is most of a completeness check on a contract or a lien waiver.

// The axis nobody normalizes

Does Mistral OCR return confidence scores?

Yes, and it is the single most underrated thing on the rate card. Set confidence_scores_granularity to "page" for aggregate statistics on each page, or to "word" to get a value for every word, including every table entry. Without a per-value confidence number you cannot route the uncertain 3% of a batch to a person, which means either you check everything by hand or you ship errors.

Service Per-value confidence? How it is exposed
Mistral OCR 4 Yes, page and word confidence_scores_granularity set to "page" or "word". Word granularity covers table entries too.
AWS Textract Yes, per block and per field Confidence is returned on every detected block and key-value pair.
Azure AI Document Intelligence Yes, per field and per cell Prebuilt and custom models return a confidence value per extracted field.
Google Document AI Yes, per entity Entities carry a confidence value.
Claude, GPT and Gemini used as OCR No A chat model returns text or JSON. There is no calibrated per-value confidence to gate a review queue on.

This is the line worth being precise about, because it gets stated too loosely. It is true that a chat model used for OCR gives you no calibrated confidence value. It is not true that AI document extraction cannot give you one. Mistral OCR 4 is a purpose-built document model and it does, which is exactly why it is a better foundation for an accuracy-sensitive pipeline than prompting a general model. See LLM OCR for where that distinction changes the architecture.

// Limits, from the source

Mistral OCR limits, languages and file formats

Two rows here contradict what most tutorials say. The widely repeated "50 MB and 1,000 pages" pairing is not Mistral's published figure: Mistral's own limits page says 512 MB per uploaded file, and Mistral does not publish a per-request page ceiling for OCR at all.

Limit Value Detail
Maximum uploaded file size 512 MB Mistral known-limitations page. Third-party guides widely quote 50 MB.
Maximum image size 20 MB Per image.
Pages per OCR request Not published Mistral does not state a per-request page ceiling for OCR. Guides that quote 1,000 pages are not citing Mistral.
Uploaded file retention 30 days "Uploaded files are retained for 30 days unless deleted earlier." Delete them yourself if that matters to you.
Batch size 512 MB, 100,000 requests Batch results stay downloadable for 24 hours after completion.
Rate limiting 429 Too Many Requests Limits vary by subscription tier.
Document formats pdf, pptx, docx Via document_url.
Image formats png, jpeg/jpg, avif Via image_url. The platform limits page also lists tiff, bmp, gif and webp for OCR.
Languages 40+ "Strong performance across 40+ languages" per Mistral's docs. Higher counts you may read elsewhere are not from Mistral.

The retention line is the one procurement will ask about

Mistral's limits page states that uploaded files are retained for 30 days unless deleted earlier. That is a default, not a policy you are stuck with: delete the file through the API once processing finishes. If your documents carry regulated data, the retention default is usually a bigger question than the per-page rate, and it varies more between vendors than pricing does. We compare all of them on OCR API data retention and zero data retention OCR.

// Normalized comparison

Is Mistral OCR cheaper than AWS Textract, Azure or Google?

It depends entirely on whether you need plain text or structured fields, and the answer flips completely between the two. For plain text Mistral is the expensive option at roughly 2.7 times the hyperscalers. For structured extraction it is the cheapest published rate of any major vendor, by a factor of six.

Service Per 1,000 pages In batch What you get
Mistral OCR 4 $4.00 $2.00 Page-priced. Blocks, boxes and confidence scores included.
Mistral Document AI $5.00 $2.50 The cheapest published STRUCTURED extraction rate of any major vendor.
Mistral Libraries OCR $3.00 n/a Plus $1 per 1M tokens indexing and $0.01 per retrieval call.
AWS Textract (Detect Document Text) $1.50 No batch discount Plain text only. Forms costs $50 and Tables $15.
Azure AI Document Intelligence (Read) $1.50 No batch discount Layout $10, custom extraction $30.
Google Document AI (Enterprise Document OCR) $1.50 No batch discount Form Parser and Custom Extractor both $30.
Azure Content Understanding (Basic) $1.00 No batch discount The cheapest published cloud OCR rate anywhere.

Mistral, Anthropic and OpenAI all cut batch work by about 50%. AWS, Azure and Google cut nothing, which quietly closes some of the gap on any workload you can run overnight. Full cross-vendor tables on OCR pricing per 1,000 pages.

// Total cost

What $4.00 per 1,000 pages does not include

The per-page rate buys recognition. It does not buy a document process. Everything below is code your team writes, hosts and maintains, and on most projects it costs considerably more than the API line on the invoice.

That is not a criticism of Mistral OCR. It is a genuinely strong model, and if you are building a product on top of a recognition layer it is a sensible foundation, especially now that it returns confidence scores you can gate on. The mistake is comparing its per-page rate against the price of a finished product and concluding one is cheaper.

Classification

Routing a mixed batch of invoices, statements and contracts to the right schema before extraction.

Validation

Totals that add up, dates in range, values checked against a master record.

Human review

A screen where a person corrects the values that came back below your confidence threshold.

Export

Getting clean records into your accounting, ERP or database, and retrying what fails.

Throughput

Queues, retries, backoff and the 429 handling that keeps a large batch moving.

Monitoring

Knowing that accuracy dropped on a new document layout before your customer tells you.

// Frequently asked

Mistral OCR questions

What is Mistral OCR?

Mistral OCR is a document understanding model from Mistral AI that reads a page and returns its text and structure as markdown, along with bounding boxes, block labels and confidence scores. The current version is Mistral OCR 4, reached through the model alias mistral-ocr-latest. It is a developer API you call from your own code, not a sign-in application with a dashboard and a review screen.

How much does Mistral OCR cost?

Mistral OCR 4 costs $4.00 per 1,000 pages and Mistral Document AI, which adds structured JSON fields against a schema you supply, costs $5.00 per 1,000 pages. Batch processing halves both, to $2.00 and $2.50. Those rates were read from Mistral's own pricing page in August 2026. A third rate of $3.00 per 1,000 pages applies to OCR inside Libraries, which is a different product.

Is Mistral OCR free?

No. Mistral OCR is billed per page through the API. Mistral gives new accounts trial credits, so you can test the model without paying, but production use is charged at the per-page rate once those credits are gone. There is no perpetual free tier for the OCR model and no downloadable build you can run yourself instead.

Is Mistral OCR open source?

No. Mistral publishes open weights for several of its text models, but the OCR model is not one of them. There is no mistral-ocr checkpoint on Hugging Face and no license to self-host it, so Mistral OCR is API-only. That is the practical difference between it and an open document model such as olmOCR, which you can run on your own hardware.

What is the latest Mistral OCR model?

Mistral OCR 4 is the current model, with the snapshot id mistral-ocr-4-0 and the rolling alias mistral-ocr-latest. It is the version that supports block extraction. Earlier versions, including the 2512 snapshot and Mistral OCR 3, are still referenced widely online, which is why version-specific behavior is worth checking before you rely on a parameter.

Is Mistral OCR an LLM?

Not in the sense people usually mean. Mistral OCR is a purpose-built document model rather than a chat model you prompt, and it returns a structured response object with per-page markdown, block coordinates and confidence values. That is why it can give you a confidence score at all, which a general chat model used for OCR cannot.

Does Mistral OCR return confidence scores?

Yes. Set confidence_scores_granularity to "page" for aggregate statistics on each page, namely average_page_confidence_score and minimum_page_confidence_score, or to "word" to also get a word_confidence_scores array with a value for every word on the page and in every table entry. This is the field you would gate a human review queue on.

Does Mistral OCR return bounding boxes?

Yes, in two ways. Image and figure regions come back with coordinates by default. Setting include_blocks to true adds a blocks array on each page listing every content region in reading order with its bounding box and a label. Block extraction needs Mistral OCR 4 or newer, and older models accept the parameter and return an empty array rather than an error.

What is the difference between Mistral OCR and Mistral Document AI?

Mistral OCR is the model that reads the page and returns markdown and structure. Mistral Document AI is the wider product built on it, adding document annotations, which take a schema you define and return JSON fields, plus the playground in Mistral AI Studio. On the rate card they are separate lines, at $4.00 and $5.00 per 1,000 pages.

How many languages does Mistral OCR support?

Mistral's documentation states strong performance across 40 or more languages and links to a full supported-language list. Be careful with much higher figures that circulate in third-party guides, because Mistral's own docs do not support them. If a specific language matters to your project, test it on your own documents rather than trusting any published count.

What is the file size limit for Mistral OCR?

Mistral's platform limits page puts uploaded files at a maximum of 512 MB and individual images at 20 MB. Mistral does not publish a per-request page ceiling for OCR. The 50 MB and 1,000-page figures repeated across third-party tutorials are not Mistral's published numbers, so treat the documentation as the system of record.

How long does Mistral keep documents you upload?

Mistral's limits page states that uploaded files are retained for 30 days unless deleted earlier. If your retention posture requires shorter, delete the file through the API once processing finishes rather than relying on the default. This is a genuine procurement question and the answer differs sharply between vendors.

Can you run Mistral OCR on AWS Bedrock or Azure?

Mistral distributes models through partner clouds as well as its own platform, and Azure AI Foundry carries Mistral models. Availability is per model and it changes, so confirm the OCR model in that cloud's catalog before you plan around it. Note that a partner cloud sets its own rates, so the prices on this page apply to Mistral's own API.

Is Mistral OCR cheaper than AWS Textract or Azure?

For plain text extraction, no. Mistral OCR 4 at $4.00 per 1,000 pages is roughly 2.7 times the $1.50 that Textract Detect Document Text, Azure Read and Google Enterprise Document OCR all charge. For structured field extraction it is the cheapest of the group by a wide margin, since Mistral Document AI is $5.00 against $30.00 for Azure custom extraction and Google Custom Extractor and $50.00 for Textract Forms.

Read the output before you pick a model

Markdown, block labels and a confidence number are all useful, and none of them tell you whether the fields you need land correctly on your paperwork. Upload one of your own documents and read what comes back.

Mistral rates on this page were read from Mistral's own pricing payload on 12 August 2026. Specs and limits come from Mistral's documentation the same day. Rates and model behavior change. Verify at the source before you sign anything.