# Mistral OCR API vs OpenDocRouter

> Mistral OCR API scores 58.8 (C) on agent readiness against OpenDocRouter's 56.6 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. OpenDocRouter leads on security & auth and maintenance & community. Both do docs parse. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-ocr-vs-opendocrouter
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-ocr-vs-opendocrouter.md (~2,250 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-ocr-vs-opendocrouter.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-ocr-vs-opendocrouter.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-08

Mistral OCR API scores 58.8 (C) on agent readiness against OpenDocRouter's 56.6 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. OpenDocRouter leads on security & auth and maintenance & community. Both do docs parse.

- Mistral OCR API: grade C, 58.8/100, rank #393 of 629. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mistral-ocr.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mistral-ocr.json
- OpenDocRouter: grade C, 56.6/100, rank #434 of 629. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/opendocrouter.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/opendocrouter.json

## Which one, for what

### Mistral OCR API (C)

Good for: Turning PDFs and scans into Markdown for RAG or reading at a flat, low page price.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 30
- Transparency & trust, 74 against 47

Watch for: OCR API at 99.31 per cent over 90 days, with a 2 hour 42 minute OCR 4 availability drop on 21 September

### OpenDocRouter (C)

Good for: Agents that need page-level markdown from PDFs and images and want to choose or compare models on price and published benchmark scores with one key.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 40 against 35
- Maintenance & community, 65 against 48

Watch for: Launched on 7 October 2026. The domain was registered on 23 September 2026 and both SDKs have one release, 1.0.0


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Mistral OCR API | OpenDocRouter | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 45 | 43 | Mistral OCR API +2 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 89 | 85 | Mistral OCR API +4 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 83 | 84 | OpenDocRouter +1 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 35 | 40 | OpenDocRouter +5 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 30 | Mistral OCR API +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 48 | 65 | OpenDocRouter +17 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 47 | Mistral OCR API +27 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **58.8 · C** | **56.6 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Mistral OCR API | OpenDocRouter |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Mistral AI | LlamaIndex |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.mistral.ai/v1` | `https://www.opendocrouter.ai/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| Price for docs parse | not published | $0.80 per 1,000 pages |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (SDKs) | Proprietary service under the LlamaIndex Terms of Service with an OpenDocRouter addendum. The Python and TypeScript SDKs are MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-08-31 | 2026-10-07 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-25 | 2026-10-07 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-03 | 2024-03-30 |
| Customer content may train models | yes, with an opt-out | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 769 stars | 127 PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 4.5/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**Mistral OCR API.** Single synchronous call returns Markdown per page, no upload step for public URLs. OCR API at 99.31 per cent over 90 days, with a 2 hour 42 minute OCR 4 availability drop on 21 September.

**OpenDocRouter.** One endpoint reaches 11 parsing models, each with a dated recipe version, a published token price and a ParseBench score, and failed pages aren't charged. The service launched on 7 October 2026, so it has no status page, incident history, SLA or changelog yet, and no key scopes were found in the reviewed documentation.

## Before you call either

### Mistral OCR API

1. Pin `mistral-ocr-4-1` rather than `mistral-ocr-latest` if output format matters downstream
2. Set `table_format` to `html` for tables with merged cells
3. Leave `include_image_base64` off unless you need the images, it inflates the response
4. Pass `pages` to OCR only the pages you need, since billing is per page
5. Upload private files through `/v1/files` and pass the signed URL

### OpenDocRouter

1. Call `GET /v1/models` first, which needs no key, and choose a model by `avg_charge_per_page_usd` and its ParseBench scores. Send its `id` as `model`
2. Send `cache: true` on any request you might repeat. Without it the markdown exists only in the POST response and a resend is charged as a new request
3. Raise the SDK timeout above its 60-second default for sync parses. Pages can run for 270 seconds and the SDKs retry a timed-out request twice
4. Check every page's `status` before using its markdown. A 200 can be `partial`, and failed pages can be resent alone with `pages`
5. Treat 402 as final until credit is added. The hold is the model's maximum charge per page times the page count, and `GET /v1/credits` shows `available_usd`

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Mistral OCR API or OpenDocRouter?

Mistral OCR API scores 58.8 (C) on agent readiness against OpenDocRouter's 56.6 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. OpenDocRouter leads on security & auth and maintenance & community.

### Do Mistral OCR API and OpenDocRouter need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call Mistral OCR API and OpenDocRouter without installing anything?

Yes. Mistral OCR API has a hosted endpoint at https://api.mistral.ai/v1 and OpenDocRouter at https://www.opendocrouter.ai/v1.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-ocr-vs-opendocrouter.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-ocr-vs-opendocrouter.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "mistral-ocr", "b": "opendocrouter"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare mistral-ocr opendocrouter`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mistral-ocr.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/opendocrouter.json

## Other comparisons with Mistral OCR API or OpenDocRouter

- [Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API vs Mistral OCR API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/adobe-pdf-extract-vs-mistral-ocr.md)
- [Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API vs OpenDocRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/adobe-pdf-extract-vs-opendocrouter.md)
- [Extend API + MCP vs Mistral OCR API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/extend-vs-mistral-ocr.md)
- [Extend API + MCP vs OpenDocRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/extend-vs-opendocrouter.md)
- [LlamaParse API + MCP vs Mistral OCR API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llamaparse-vs-mistral-ocr.md)
- [LlamaParse API + MCP vs OpenDocRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llamaparse-vs-opendocrouter.md)
- [Mistral OCR API vs Nanonets API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-ocr-vs-nanonets.md)
- [Mistral OCR API vs Reducto API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-ocr-vs-reducto.md)
- [Mistral OCR API vs Unstructured API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-ocr-vs-unstructured.md)
- [Nanonets API + MCP vs OpenDocRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanonets-vs-opendocrouter.md)
- [OpenDocRouter vs Reducto API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/opendocrouter-vs-reducto.md)
- [OpenDocRouter vs Unstructured API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/opendocrouter-vs-unstructured.md)
- [Invofox vs OpenDocRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/invofox-vs-opendocrouter.md)
- [Mindee API vs Mistral OCR API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mindee-vs-mistral-ocr.md)
- [Mindee API vs OpenDocRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mindee-vs-opendocrouter.md)
- [Mistral OCR API vs Veryfi API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-ocr-vs-veryfi.md)
- [OpenDocRouter vs Veryfi API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/opendocrouter-vs-veryfi.md)
- [Invofox vs Mistral OCR API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/invofox-vs-mistral-ocr.md)