Mistral API free tier: limits, keys and failover

What is free on Mistral

New accounts start in Free mode, with API access on by default and no credit card required. The pricing page lists the Free plan with monthly API credits, subject to fair usage limits. Pay-as-you-go extends usage beyond what the month includes.

Mistral free-tier limits

Mistral does not publish Free mode numbers. Limits apply per organization and per model (tokens per minute and requests per second) and are shown in your Admin Panel. Mistral describes Free mode as having the lowest limits, meant for evaluation and prototyping, and notes that adding credits does not raise rate limits.

Get a Mistral API key

Create a Mistral account, open API Keys in the Studio console and create a key. Free mode needs no credit card. Keys take an expiration date and are shown only once.

https://console.mistral.ai

OpenAI compatibility

Mistral's migration guide says OpenAI-compatible clients work by changing the base URL and model name. Mistral does not publish a list of unsupported OpenAI parameters.

https://api.mistral.ai/v1

Data and privacy

The pricing page lists model training as opt-out on the Free plan. You opt out in the Admin panel; the API and Vibe toggles are separate.

Through Ficelle, your Mistral key stays on your machine and prompts go straight to Mistral: there is no Ficelle proxy in between.

Before you rely on it

• Check requests per second and tokens per minute separately in Admin Panel > API > Limits. Review included monthly usage and pay-as-you-go settings when access stops.
• Free mode covers included monthly usage. Confirm model availability and remaining credits in your organization account.
• Requests can stop when the month's included usage runs out unless pay-as-you-go is on.
• Training is opt-out on the Free plan, with separate toggles for the API and Vibe.

Use Mistral with automatic failover

Ficelle can include Mistral behind your local OpenAI-compatible endpoint when the integration is enabled and its models pass free-access and capability checks. Mistral is listed in Ficelle Pro's maintained provider pack. Check your installed configuration, credentials and account entitlement before relying on it. Another eligible candidate must be available for failover to succeed. Local routing guards do not control upstream billing when an account permits paid usage beyond its free allocation. See strict-zero routing and account limits.

# Mistral ships in Ficelle Pro's maintained provider pack.
ficelle doctor --text          # check this install before configuring provider access

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(base_url="http://127.0.0.1:8646/v1", api_key="ficelle-local")

# Ficelle selects among configured, enabled, eligible models.
# If none can serve the request, it returns an error.
client.chat.completions.create(
    model="ficelle/auto-tools",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "..."}],
)

See what Ficelle Pro includes →

Pick a model type

Choose a model type for your request. Eligibility depends on the installed provider configuration, catalog data, free-access evidence and capability checks. A catalog listing alone does not confirm that your account can call a model.

• Tool calling
• JSON & structured output
• Fast, low-latency
• Reasoning
• Coding assistants
• Agent orchestration
• Long context
• Context compression
• Vision
• Audio input
• Video input
• Multimodal

Questions