Mistral Small 3 vs Mistral Small 4
Pick up to 3 models · pricing, context and capabilities · simulate your product cost
Data updated on September 30, 2026· 217 models
Mistral Small 3 is a 24B-parameter language model optimized for low-latency performance across common AI tasks.
- Reasoning estimated
- Speed estimated
- Input
- Output
- Context
- 33 K tokens
- Max output
- 16 K
- Input, $ per 1M tokens
- ▲$0.050
- Output, $ per 1M tokens
- ▲$0.080
- Cache read, $ per 1M
- —
- Batch (input / output)
- —
- Tool calling
- No
- Released
- 01/30/2025
- Knowledge cutoff
- —
- API id
- mistralai/mistral-small-24b-instruct-2501
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.
- Reasoning estimated
- ▲
- Speed estimated
- Input
- Output
- Context
- ▲262 K tokens
- Max output
- ▲210 K
- Input, $ per 1M tokens
- $0.150
- Output, $ per 1M tokens
- $0.600
- Cache read, $ per 1M
- $0.015
- Batch (input / output)
- $0.075 / $0.300
- Tool calling
- Yes
- Released
- ▲03/16/2026
- Knowledge cutoff
- 2025-06
- API id
- mistralai/mistral-small-2603
Which is the better API choice: Mistral Small 3 vs Mistral Small 4?
- Mistral Small 3: cheapest input (67% less than Mistral Small 4)
- Mistral Small 3: cheapest output
- Mistral Small 4: largest context (262 K)
- Mistral Small 4: the newest (03/16/2026)
- Mistral Small 4: most reasoning (estimated)
Mistral Small 3 costs 67% less on input and 87% less on output than Mistral Small 4 ($0.050 / $0.080 versus $0.150 / $0.600 per million tokens). Mistral Small 4 accepts more context (262 K). On capabilities, Mistral Small 4 accepts images; Mistral Small 4 has a reasoning mode. Mistral Small 4 offers a batch tier at half price for jobs that do not need an immediate answer.
What would your product cost?
Estimate the monthly cost with your app's real volume. List prices, no cache or batch discounts.
With Mistral Small 3 you save $3.58 a month versus Mistral Small 4 (77% less).
The 6 cheapest for this scenario (chat, last 12 months)
- 1Lyria 3 Pro Preview Google$0.00
- 2Lyria 3 Clip Preview Google$0.00
- 3Qwen3.7 Flash Qwen$0.97
- 4DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 DeepSeek$1.55
- 5Ministral 3 3B 2512 Mistral$1.90
- 6Qwen3.5-Flash Qwen$2.02
Paste your prompt: tokens and cost per model
Rough estimate (about 4 characters per token). Nothing is sent to any server.
Cost of sending it 1,000 times (input only)
- 1Mistral Small 3 Mistral$0.004
- 2Mistral Small 4 Mistral$0.011
- 3Claude Sonnet 5.5 Anthropic$0.152
- 4Claude Sonnet 5 Anthropic$0.152
- 5Claude Opus 5.5 Anthropic$0.304
- 6Claude Opus 5 Anthropic$0.380
- 7Claude Fable 5.1 Anthropic$0.760
- 8Claude Fable 5 Anthropic$0.760
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Frequently asked questions
Which is the better API choice: Mistral Small 3 vs Mistral Small 4?
Mistral Small 3 costs 67% less on input and 87% less on output than Mistral Small 4 ($0.050 / $0.080 versus $0.150 / $0.600 per million tokens). Mistral Small 4 accepts more context (262 K). On capabilities, Mistral Small 4 accepts images; Mistral Small 4 has a reasoning mode. Mistral Small 4 offers a batch tier at half price for jobs that do not need an immediate answer.
Which is cheaper: Mistral Small 3 and Mistral Small 4?
Mistral Small 3 is cheaper: $0.050 per million input tokens and $0.080 per million output tokens, versus $0.150 / $0.600 for Mistral Small 4.
Which has more context: Mistral Small 3 and Mistral Small 4?
Mistral Small 4 accepts 262 K tokens of context; Mistral Small 3 accepts 33 K.
Which is newer: Mistral Small 3 and Mistral Small 4?
Mistral Small 4 was released on 03/16/2026; Mistral Small 3 on 01/30/2025.
What would 10,000 requests a month cost with Mistral Small 3 and Mistral Small 4?
With 1,500 input and 400 output tokens per request: Mistral Small 3: $1.07; Mistral Small 4: $4.65 a month, at list price.
Where do the prices come from and how often are they updated?
From the public catalogs of OpenRouter, models.dev and LiteLLM, which publish each provider's list prices. They sync once a day and the last update date is shown above the comparison.
What does price per million tokens mean?
It is what the provider charges per million tokens you send (input) or the model generates (output). A token is roughly 4 characters. Output almost always costs more than input.
Sources: OpenRouter, models.dev and LiteLLM. Prices in USD per million tokens, list price, no volume discounts. Prompt tokens are an estimate; each provider's tokenizer may differ.