Best offer on record: Free mode API (default, no card required). 5 verified findings, checked 2026-10-22.
Offers
Free mode API (default, no card required) high confidence
Every new Mistral account starts in Free mode by default; API access is enabled with no credit card required. Included monthly usage is shared across Studio, the API, and Vibe Code, and is drawn first; when exhausted and pay-as-you-go is off, usage stops until the next billing period. Rate caps (requests/second, tokens/minute, tokens/month, per model) are set per organization and shown ONLY on the Admin Panel Limits page — Mistral publishes no public numeric quota. Described officially as the lowest limits, 'intended for evaluation and prototyping'. Since 2026-10-07 the pricing page no longer states a dollar figure on the Free card (the '$10/mo in API credits' line was removed without announcement); the 'pre' number was archived Sep 1–Oct 7, 2026. Pay-as-you-go is a switch, not a plan: prepaid credits must exist before enabling it, and adding credits does NOT raise rate-limit tiers (tiers move on cumulative billed usage: Tier 2 >€20, Tier 3 >€100, Tier 4 >€500 billed).
Eligibility
Anyone who creates a account (docs: 'Free mode is the default state for new accounts'). No credit card required (stated in the Studio quickstart: 'no credit card required'). Restricted regions per Mistral terms (as read 2026-09-26, medium confidence): Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and Crimea/Donetsk/Luhansk regions. NOTE: since 2026-08-05 (US) / 2026-08-07 (EU) the consumer terms exclude Mistral Studio/API from individual use — API is limited to business customers under the Commercial ToS, so personal-project use is technically out of scope.
How to claim
Create an account at console.mistral.ai (Free mode is default, no card) → Studio → API Keys → 'Create new key' → call api.mistral.ai/v1 within your included monthly usage; inspect your own numeric caps on Admin Panel → API → Limits.
Expiry
Included monthly usage resets each month; Free mode itself has no stated expiration or renewal terms. Rate caps are persistent per org.
Gotchas
Shared pool: heavy Vibe Code/Vibe app usage eats the same monthly allowance as API calls, so a free account's API budget can vanish. Training/privacy: API calls may be used to improve Mistral models unless the 'Anonymous improvement data' toggle is switched off (default opt-out). Third-party report (Oct 2026): mistral-large-4 on a free key answered 'This model is not available in your subscription tier' even after $10 credit — flagship/labs models may be unavailable on Free. Free-model lineup shifted over 2026 (e.g., mistral-medium dropped 2026-08-14).
Free plan for Vibe (formerly Le Chat) consumer app high confidence
Separate from the API tier: the consumer 'Free' plan is 'Your personal AI agent for everyday tasks' — web + mobile access with limited messages, web searches and coding sessions; limited image generation/editing; 100+ connectors. Published multipliers in the pricing table: messages & voice 'Up to 6x free', web searches 'Up to 5x free', image generation 'Up to 40x free', task scheduling 'Up to 5', project folders 'Up to 1,000', model-training data use 'Opt-out', support = help center only. No API credits included (Pro starts at $15/mo in API credits). All subject to fair-usage limits and the ToS; absolute counts are not published.
Eligibility
Public; no credit-card requirement stated on the page. Subject to Mistral's regional restrictions (embargoed regions excluded).
How to claim
Sign in to the Vibe console/app — Free plan is the default consumer tier; no application needed.
Expiry
No expiration; monthly fair-usage caps reset with the billing period; 'Subject to fair usage limits and Mistral's Terms of Service.'
Gotchas
The 6x/5x/40x multipliers are relative to a baseline, not absolute counts. Free-tier inputs/outputs may train models unless you opt out. This is app-only: it grants no API access — API calls still come from your Free-mode API keys and the shared monthly pool.
Education plan (student/teacher discount — paid, not free) high confidence
Not a free offer: verified students at accredited higher-education institutions get Mistral Pro at $5.99/month instead of the standard $14.99/month, capped at 12 months of eligibility. Eligibility is limited to students who have NOT previously used Vibe or Le Chat. Per a third-party pricing read (2026-10-11, medium confidence) the Education plan bundles $15/mo in API credits shared across the API, Studio and Vibe Code. There is no fully free education license from Mistral.
Eligibility
Student verification at an accredited higher institution (the page says 'verified students'; the mechanism is the console's student-verification flow, typically institutional email — the page does not explicitly say '.edu email required'). 12-month cap; new-to-Vibe/Le-Chat users only. No card-free access: it is a paid subscription, though students can pay at the discount price.
How to claim
Purchase the Education plan from the Mistral console using student verification; help-center article 'Students and teachers can check whether they are eligible for a discount' (referenced from docs.mistral.ai/admin/billing-usage/subscriptions).
Expiry
Eligibility limited to 12 months; the subscription itself renews monthly at $5.99 while eligible.
Gotchas
Do not count this as a free tier — $5.99/mo is real money. The 12-month window means the discount does not renew beyond that. Includes limited API credits ($15/mo reported third-party), not the Pro $25.50/mo figure.
Mistralship startup program (€30K credits) — currently unavailable medium confidence
Launched late 2024: 6-month cohorts of 10 startups; each winner received up to €30,000 in La Plateforme credits, dedicated 1:1 support from Mistral's Solutions & Science team, and early access to new models/products. Original eligibility (per the Dec 2024 announcement press): registered startup with a company website and a business email, founded less than 7 years ago, and no Series B or later round raised (Series B+ companies could apply for a separate offering). First cohort applications closed 2025-01-05. As of today (2026-10-22) both https://mistral.ai/startups and https://mistral.ai/news/mistral-ship return HTTP 404 (verified directly); no replacement public offer or closure notice exists. Third-party trackers (May 2026 and Oct 2026) classify the program as discontinued and route would-be applicants to Mistral sales/partners.
Eligibility
Historically: early-stage startups (pre-Series B), founded <7 years, registered company with public web presence; competitive selection (10 per cohort). No longer applicable — no live application path as of 2026-10-22.
How to claim
Cannot be claimed right now: no public landing page or form (both /startups and /news/mistral-ship are 404). The only remaining route is contacting Mistral sales / startup team directly.
Expiry
Cohort 1 closed 2025-01-05; the program page disappeared by mid-2026 (confirmed 404 today); no stated new cohort or deadlines.
Gotchas
Credits were La Plateforme platform credits (not cash, not transferable). Absence of a public page does not guarantee the program is dead — but with no closure notice and 404s on all paths, treat it as sunset/unavailable; do not plan around it.
Trial credits — none exist; free 'labs-' models and free Moderation 2 instead medium confidence
Mistral has no published trial-credit program (no dollar grant to new API customers) as of 2026-10-22. Two small free items exist on the API: model IDs prefixed 'labs-' are free but experimental and not for production (third-party pricing read, 2026-10-11), and Mistral Moderation 2 is priced at $0. The legacy free 'Experiment' plan (2024–2026, with published caps around ~1 req/s, 500K tokens/min, ~1B tokens/month) has been replaced by Free mode with unpublished limits; its old help/docs pages now return 404. Open-weight Mistral models (Ministral 3 8B/14B, open-mistral-nemo; Mistral 7B Apache-2.0) can be self-hosted for free, which is the real 'free' route beyond the shared pool.
Eligibility
labs- models: any account key (free-mode included) — experimental, not production-safe. Open-weight self-hosting: no account needed; Mistral-licensed weights, research/individual use covered, commercial deployment requires a Mistral license.
How to claim
Call 'labs-*' model IDs with a free-mode key at no token cost, or download open weights and self-host; there is no trial-credit claim flow to follow.
Expiry
labs- models may change or retire without notice; Moderation 2's free pricing is a list-price item, subject to change.
Gotchas
Free 'labs-' inference is explicitly for testing; don't build on it. Self-hosting has no egress cost but you own compute. Beware aggregator sites (e.g., 'AI Credits') selling 'Mistral credits' — that is a paid resale, not an official free offer.
1) Mistralship startup program (up to €30K La Plateforme credits, 10 startups/6-month cohort): cohort-1 applications closed 2025-01-05; the program's public paths are dead — https://mistral.ai/startups and https://mistral.ai/news/mistral-ship both return 404 as of 2026-10-22 (verified directly today); Mistral published no closure notice and no replacement offer; third-party trackers mark it discontinued. 2) On 2026-10-07 (no announcement), the pricing page dropped the '$10 /mo in API credits' line from the Free plan and reduced Pro's included API credits from $30 to $25.50/mo — the Free card now states no dollar figure; included monthly usage remains, visible only on the account's Limits page. 3) The legacy 'Experiment' free tier (published caps ~1 rps / 500K tokens/min / ~1B tokens/month) was retired and its pages now 404, replaced by Free mode with per-org unpublished limits. 4) Free-tier model lineup shifted during 2026 — e.g., mistral-medium was dropped from the free tier on 2026-08-14; mistral-large-4 (public preview 2026-10-06) reportedly rejects free-tier keys with 'not available in your subscription tier'. 5) Since 2026-08-05 (US) / 2026-08-07 (EU), consumer terms exclude Studio/API from individual use — API access is for business customers under the Commercial ToS, which quietly constrains who 'free mode' actually serves. 6) No free education license exists: the education offer is a paid $5.99/mo student discount (12-month cap), not a grant.