Metallurgy vs Mistral OCR.
Mistral OCR is a cloud OCR API for PDFs and images, and Metallurgy is a Mac app that reads documents on device for coding agents. This page compares price and features.
| Feature | Metallurgy | Mistral OCR |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Not set yet | $4 per 1,000 pages |
| Runs on Windows and Linux | No | Yes |
| Documents stay on your machine | Yes | Partlyenterprise self-hosting |
| No extra API key | Yes | No |
| Reads scanned PDFs (OCR) | Yes | Yes |
| Reads audio and video | Yes | No |
| Returns only the part asked for | Yes | Partlyannotations, QnA |
| Ships an agent skill | Yes | No |
| Platforms | macOS 27, Apple silicon | Cloud service |
| How you get it | Mac app | API key, SDK or HTTP |
| Records tokens saved | Yes | No |
| Reads Word, Excel and PowerPoint | No | PartlyDOCX and PPTX |
Yes Yes Partly Partly No No
Price
Mistral OCR 4.1 costs $4 per 1,000 pages, or $5 per 1,000 annotated pages, and the older OCR 3 costs $2 per 1,000 pages. Batch API requests on OCR 4 get a 50% discount, about $2 per 1,000 pages. Metallurgy will be sold once, as a one-time purchase with lifetime access, and its price has not been set.
Where OCR runs
Mistral OCR processes documents in its cloud: you send a publicly available URL, a Base64-encoded PDF or an uploaded file, with a MISTRAL_API_KEY for authentication. Uploaded files must be 50 MB or less and 1,000 pages or fewer, and the output is a JSON object with per-page Markdown. Metallurgy runs on your Mac with Apple’s on-device frameworks, needs no key and returns only the passages, fields or failures the agent asked for.
Where Mistral OCR is ahead
- It works from any operating system, because the OCR runs in Mistral’s cloud.
- There is no software to install beyond an SDK or an HTTP call.
- It returns whole-document Markdown with tables and image placeholders.
- It reads PPTX and DOCX files, which Metallurgy does not list among its inputs.
- It supports 170 languages and offers structured annotations and document question answering.
Metallurgy is coming soon.
It will be sold like every Handy Tools app: one fee, lifetime access.
It will need macOS 27 or later, Apple silicon.
More comparisons
Sources
Checked against Mistral OCR’s own website and documentation on 13 November 2026. If something here is out of date, tell us and we’ll correct it.
- OCR processor - Mistral AI documentation
- Document AI overview - Mistral AI documentation
- API pricing - Mistral AI documentation
- OCR 4.1 model card - Mistral AI documentation
- Mistral OCR 4 announcement
Mistral OCR is a trademark of its owner. Metallurgy is not affiliated with it.