AI model comparison
Mistral Small 4 vs Mistral Medium 3
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
Mistral
Mistral Medium 3
Mistral Medium 3 is a high-performance enterprise-grade language model designed to deliver frontier-level capabilities at significantly reduced operational cost.
- Input / 1M
- $0.40
- Output / 1M
- $2
- Context
- 131K
At a glance
Quick verdict
How the two models stack up on the things people ask about most.
Lower price
Mistral Small 4
3x cheaper for a typical chat
Higher intelligence score
Mistral Small 4
11.3 vs 9 on Artificial Analysis
Larger context window
Mistral Small 4
262K vs 131K tokens
Newer release
Mistral Small 4
Released March 16, 2026
Benchmarks
Benchmark scores
Independent scores from Artificial Analysis. Higher is better.
Intelligence index
Mistral Small 411.3Mistral Medium 39Coding index
Mistral Small 426.6Mistral Medium 3Not availableAgentic index
Mistral Small 40.8Mistral Medium 3Not availablePricing
Mistral Small 4 vs Mistral Medium 3 API pricing
Per-token API rates. Cheaper option highlighted.
| Metric | Mistral Small 4 | Mistral Medium 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Input tokensPer 1M tokens | $0.15 | $0.40 |
| Output tokensPer 1M tokens | $0.60 | $2 |
| Cached input (read)Per 1M tokens | $0.02 | $0.04 |
| 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
Mistral Small 4$0.60Mistral Medium 3$1.80Coding task
30K in, 4K out
Mistral Small 4$6.90$2.85 cachedMistral Medium 3$20$9.20 cachedLong document summary
150K in, 2K out
Mistral Small 4$23.70$3.45 cachedMistral Medium 3$64$10 cachedSpecs
Context window and capabilities
How much each model can read, how much it can write, and what it accepts as input.
| Metric | Mistral Small 4 | Mistral Medium 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Context window | 262K tokens | 131K tokens |
| Max output | 210K tokens | 105K tokens |
| Input types | Image, Text | File, Image, Text |
| Output types | Text | Text |
| Reasoning effort levels | High, None | Not available |
| Default reasoning effort | High | Not available |
| Release date | March 16, 2026 | May 7, 2025 |
Features
Supported features
API features available for each model.
| Metric | Mistral Small 4 | Mistral Medium 3 |
|---|---|---|
| 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 |
Keep exploring
More on these models
Other head-to-heads, the full model page, and the alternatives list for each model.
Mistral Small 4View full model details- Mistral Small 4 vs Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite
- Mistral Small 4 vs gpt-oss-120b
- Mistral Small 4 vs GPT-5 Nano
- Mistral Small 4 vs Qwen3 235B A22B Instruct 2507
- Mistral Small 4 vs Nemotron 3 Super
- Mistral Small 4 vs Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B
- Mistral Small 4 vs GLM 4.6V
- Mistral Small 4 vs GLM 4.5 Air
- Mistral Small 4 vs Trinity Large Thinking
- Mistral Small 4 vs Llama 4 Maverick
- Mistral Small 4 vs Mistral Large 3 2512
- Mistral Small 4 vs Mistral Medium 3.1
- Mistral Small 4 vs Saba
Mistral Medium 3View full model details- Mistral Medium 3 vs GPT-4.1 Mini
- Mistral Medium 3 vs Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct
- Mistral Medium 3 vs DeepSeek V3 0324
- Mistral Medium 3 vs Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct
- Mistral Medium 3 vs Mistral Large 3 2512
- Mistral Medium 3 vs Qwen3 Coder Next
- Mistral Medium 3 vs Mistral Medium 3.1
- Mistral Medium 3 vs Devstral 2 2512
- Mistral Medium 3 vs GLM 4.5V
- Mistral Medium 3 vs Mistral Large 2407
- Mistral Medium 3 vs Hermes 4 405B
- Mistral Medium 3 vs Nova Pro 1.0
- Mistral Medium 3 vs Mistral Large
- Mistral Medium 3 vs Mixtral 8x22B Instruct
Our take
Mistral Small 4 is 3x cheaper for a typical chat. Mistral Small 4 scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (11.3 vs 9). Mistral Small 4 has the larger context window (262K vs 131K 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 Mistral Medium 3 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 Mistral Medium 3 costs $0.40 per 1M input tokens and $2 per 1M output tokens.
Which has a bigger context window, Mistral Small 4 or Mistral Medium 3?
Mistral Small 4 supports up to 262K tokens of context, compared with 131K for Mistral Medium 3.
Is Mistral Small 4 smarter than Mistral Medium 3?
On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, Mistral Small 4 scores 11.3 and Mistral Medium 3 scores 9, 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 Mistral Medium 3 at the same time?
Yes. Shortcut Chat sends one prompt to multiple models at once, so you can see Mistral Small 4 and Mistral Medium 3 answer side by side and keep the better response.
Why choose? Ask both.
Send one prompt to Mistral Small 4 and Mistral Medium 3 at the same time. Compare the answers side by side and keep the best one.