Mistral OCR vs Google Document AI Pricing for Invoice Extraction

Short answer: for invoice extraction, Mistral is about 20 times cheaper on list price. Mistral Document AI, which returns structured fields against a schema you define, costs $5 per 1,000 pages. Google Document AI's pretrained Invoice Parser costs $0.10 per document for up to 10 pages, which is $100 per 1,000 one-page invoices. Google's price buys a ready-made invoice schema with line items. Mistral's price buys a model you still have to point at your own schema and wrap in code.

Both products show up on the same shortlist when an engineering lead is asked to automate accounts payable intake. One is a general-purpose OCR model that went from text recognition into structured output. The other is a cloud platform with a processor built specifically for invoices. Their pricing pages describe completely different units, pages on one side and "counts" on the other, so the comparison only makes sense once both are turned into a cost per invoice. That is what this article does, using the rates each vendor publishes. If you would rather see the output than the math, drop a sample invoice into the uploader at the top of this page.

How much does Google Document AI invoice parser cost?

Google charges $0.10 per count for the Invoice Parser, and one count covers up to 10 pages of a single document. A one-page invoice costs $0.10, an 11-page invoice costs $0.20, and a 100-page document costs $1. There is no free tier for the parser. Google sells a Gemini Enterprise Flexible Savings Plan that lowers the count price to $0.09 on a one-year commitment and $0.08 on a three-year commitment.

Three details from Google's pricing and quota pages matter more than the headline rate:

• Short invoices pay for ten pages. Most vendor invoices are one or two pages, so the effective rate is $50 to $100 per 1,000 pages, not the $10 that "$0.10 per 10 pages" seems to imply.
• Only the first invoice in a file is processed. Google states that if a document contains several eligible forms, only the first is processed and charged. A scanner batch that merges 30 invoices into one PDF returns one invoice. You have to split files before sending them.
• Synchronous calls stop at 10 pages. Longer documents go through batch requests, up to 200 pages each, which changes how you build the pipeline for long freight or utility bills.

The other processors are priced per page. Enterprise Document OCR is free for the first 1,000 pages, then $1.50 per 1,000 up to 5 million and $0.60 beyond. Layout Parser is $10 per 1,000 pages. Form Parser and the Custom Extractor are $30 per 1,000 pages up to a million, then $20. A deployed custom processor version also carries a hosting charge of $0.05 an hour, which Google itself works out as $438 a year per version. Failed requests are not billed. Full detail is on our Google Document AI pricing page.

How much does Mistral OCR cost per page?

Mistral OCR 4 costs $4 per 1,000 pages through the API and $2 per 1,000 pages through the Batch API, which applies a 50 percent discount. Mistral Document AI, the annotation layer that returns typed fields against a JSON schema you supply, costs $5 per 1,000 pages. Billing is per page with no rounding to blocks, so a two-page invoice costs $0.01 on Document AI. The model covers 170 languages, and a self-hosted container exists for teams that cannot send invoices to a public API.

The OCR endpoint returns markdown, not invoice fields. To get vendor, invoice number, dates, totals and a line-item table, you use annotations, write the schema, and handle validation yourself. Our Mistral OCR pricing page breaks down the per-page math and the build that sits around it.

Is Mistral OCR cheaper than Google Document AI?

Yes, at every page count. Google's Invoice Parser never drops below $0.008 a page even on a three-year plan with a full 10-page document, and Mistral Document AI is $0.005 a page. For the typical one or two-page invoice the gap is 10 to 20 times. Here is the monthly bill at list price, assuming one-page invoices:

The Custom Extractor column assumes no hosting charge for a deployed custom version; add $438 a year per version if you train one. Mistral OCR in batch is listed for completeness, but it returns text, so it is only comparable once you add your own field extraction on top.

The list price is not the whole bill. At 1,000 invoices a month, the difference between $100 and $5 is $95, which is less than two hours of a developer's time. At 50,000 invoices it is $4,750 a month and starts to decide the architecture. For comparison, the same Mistral rates against Microsoft's invoice model are covered in Mistral OCR vs Azure Document Intelligence.

Which is better for invoices, Mistral OCR or Google Document AI?

Google is the better fit when you want a fixed invoice schema on day one and accept a higher price for it. The Invoice Parser already knows supplier, invoice ID, dates, totals, tax and line items, and you get confidence scores without designing anything. Mistral is the better fit when you have engineers, want control over the schema, and care about cost at volume or about self-hosting. Neither one hands an AP clerk a spreadsheet.

On accuracy, be careful with what gets quoted. The only independent invoice benchmark we trust here is BusinesswareTech's January 2025 test on scanned invoices, which measured Google Document AI at 82 percent on header fields and 40 percent on line items. Mistral was not in that test; its own published score is 85.2 on the olmOCR benchmark, which measures reading, not invoice fields. If line items matter, run fifty of your own invoices through both before committing, and look at how each one handles tables that break across pages. Our invoice line item extraction page explains why line tables are where most tools fall down.

What both prices leave out

Each API returns JSON to your code. Before anyone in finance sees a result you still need file splitting, retries, a review screen for low-confidence fields, vendor name cleanup, totals checks and an export to Excel, CSV or the ERP. That build usually takes a developer one to three weeks and then needs upkeep as vendor layouts change. Once the fields land in a warehouse, a separate layer is often added so the team can ask spend questions of the extracted data in plain English instead of waiting on SQL. None of this appears on either pricing page, and for a team without spare engineering time it costs more than the API bill at any volume under about 50,000 invoices a month.

When a finished invoice tool costs less than either API

If the goal is invoices in a spreadsheet or QuickBooks this week, a flat-priced tool removes the build. InvoiceExtractor pricing starts at $49 a month (or $24 a month billed yearly) for 2,500 pages with line items, Excel and CSV export and bulk upload of 50 files, and the $149 Plus plan covers 10,000 pages. At 2,000 invoices a month that is less than Google's $200 parser bill and needs no code at all. Teams that do want an API can use the invoice data extraction API at a flat rate, and teams comparing more vendors can start from the Google Document AI alternative or the Gemini OCR vs Mistral OCR comparison.

Frequently asked questions

Does Google Document AI charge per page or per invoice?

The Invoice Parser charges per document in 10-page blocks: $0.10 for 1 to 10 pages, $0.20 for 11 to 20. In practice that is a per-invoice price. The OCR, Layout, Form and Custom Extractor processors charge per page.

Is there a free tier for Mistral OCR or Google Document AI?

Google gives 1,000 Enterprise Document OCR pages a month at no charge, but nothing free on the Invoice Parser. Mistral offers a limited experimentation allowance for testing the API, not a free tier for production volume. For a no-code trial on your own invoices, upload a few files at the top of this page.

Can Mistral OCR extract invoice line items?

Yes, through Document AI annotations, if your schema defines a line-item array. You write that schema and validate the output. Google's Invoice Parser returns line items without schema work.

Which is cheaper at 10,000 invoices a month?

Mistral Document AI at about $50, against $1,000 for Google's Invoice Parser at list price or $800 on a three-year savings plan, before the engineering on either side.