AI model comparison
Mistral Small 4 vs Llama 4 Maverick
Pricing, context window, benchmarks, and features compared side by side. Or skip the guesswork and send one prompt to both.
Mistral
Mistral Small 4
Mistral Small 4 is the next major release in the Mistral Small family, unifying the capabilities of several flagship Mistral models into a single system.
- Input / 1M
- $0.15
- Output / 1M
- $0.60
- Context
- 262K
Meta
Llama 4 Maverick
Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct (128E) is a high-capacity multimodal language model from Meta, built on a mixture-of-experts (MoE) architecture with 128 experts and 17 billion active parameters per forward
- Input / 1M
- $0.19
- Output / 1M
- $0.65
- Context
- 1.05M
At a glance
Quick verdict
How the two models stack up on the things people ask about most.
Lower price
Mistral Small 4
1.2x cheaper for a typical chat
Higher intelligence score
Mistral Small 4
11.3 vs 10 on Artificial Analysis
Larger context window
Llama 4 Maverick
1.05M vs 262K tokens
Newer release
Mistral Small 4
Released March 16, 2026
Benchmarks
Benchmark scores
Independent scores from Artificial Analysis. Higher is better.
Intelligence index
Coding index
Agentic index
Pricing
Mistral Small 4 vs Llama 4 Maverick API pricing
Per-token API rates. Cheaper option highlighted.
| Metric | ||
|---|---|---|
| Input tokensPer 1M tokens | $0.15 | $0.19 |
| Output tokensPer 1M tokens | $0.60 | $0.65 |
| Cached input (read)Per 1M tokens | $0.02 | $0.05 |
| Cache writePer 1M tokens | Not available | Not available |
What it costs in practice
Estimated cost per 1,000 requests at standard rates. Coding and long-document figures also show the cost when the input is already cached.
Chat message
2K in, 500 out
Coding task
30K in, 4K out
Long document summary
150K in, 2K out
Specs
Context window and capabilities
How much each model can read, how much it can write, and what it accepts as input.
| Metric | ||
|---|---|---|
| Context window | 262K tokens | 1.05M tokens |
| Max output | 210K tokens | 16K tokens |
| Input types | Image, Text | Image, Text |
| Output types | Text | Text |
| Reasoning effort levels | High, None | Not available |
| Default reasoning effort | High | Not available |
| Release date | March 16, 2026 | April 5, 2025 |
Features
Supported features
API features available for each model.
| Metric | ||
|---|---|---|
| Tool calling | Supported | Supported |
| Structured outputs | Supported | Supported |
| JSON mode | Supported | Supported |
| Reasoning | Supported | Not supported |
| Temperature | Supported | Supported |
| Stop sequences | Supported | Supported |
| Deterministic seed | Supported | Supported |
| Verbosity control | Not supported | Not supported |
Our take
Mistral Small 4 is 1.2x cheaper for a typical chat. Mistral Small 4 scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (11.3 vs 10). Llama 4 Maverick has the larger context window (1.05M vs 262K tokens). The right pick depends on your workload, so the quickest way to settle it is to send the same prompt to both and compare.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Is Mistral Small 4 or Llama 4 Maverick cheaper?
Mistral Small 4 is cheaper for a typical chat (2K input tokens and 500 output tokens). Mistral Small 4 costs $0.15 per 1M input tokens and $0.60 per 1M output tokens, while Llama 4 Maverick costs $0.19 per 1M input tokens and $0.65 per 1M output tokens.
Which has a bigger context window, Mistral Small 4 or Llama 4 Maverick?
Llama 4 Maverick supports up to 1.05M tokens of context, compared with 262K for Mistral Small 4.
Is Mistral Small 4 smarter than Llama 4 Maverick?
On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, Mistral Small 4 scores 11.3 and Llama 4 Maverick scores 10, putting Mistral Small 4 ahead. Benchmarks don't capture everything, so the best test is running your own prompts through both.
Can I use Mistral Small 4 and Llama 4 Maverick at the same time?
Yes. Shortcut Chat sends one prompt to multiple models at once, so you can see Mistral Small 4 and Llama 4 Maverick answer side by side and keep the better response.
Why choose? Ask both.
Send one prompt to Mistral Small 4 and Llama 4 Maverick at the same time. Compare the answers side by side and keep the best one.