Claude Opus 4 vs Mistral Small 3
Performance benchmarks + pricing comparison — updated April 2026
Claude Opus 4
AnthropicAnthropic's most powerful model. Best for complex reasoning and challenging coding tasks.
| Input | $15.00/M |
| Output | $75.00/M |
| Context | 200K tokens |
| Best For | Complex architecture decisions, debugging hard bugs, research |
| Benchmark | 86/100 |
Mistral Small 3
MistralMistral's efficient small model. Great performance for its size at very competitive pricing.
| Input | $0.100/M |
| Output | $0.300/M |
| Context | 32K tokens |
| Best For | Chat, summarization, general text tasks |
Cost Comparison by Scenario
Estimated cost per project with 30% cache hit rate. Actual costs may vary based on usage patterns.
| Scenario | Claude Opus 4 | Mistral Small 3 | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small Script (1K lines) | $3.08 | $0.01 | Mistral Small 3 saves $3.07 (100%) |
| Medium Feature (10K lines) | $23.29 | $0.10 | Mistral Small 3 saves $23.19 (100%) |
| Large Project (50K lines) | $116.44 | $0.47 | Mistral Small 3 saves $115.96 (100%) |
| Code Review (5K lines) | $6.02 | $0.02 | Mistral Small 3 saves $5.99 (100%) |
Verdict
Mistral Small 3 wins on both price and performance — $0.100/M input with a benchmark score of N/A/100.
For most developers, this is the clear choice between these two models.
Compare with Other Models
Claude Sonnet 4
AnthropicAnthropic's balanced model for coding and general tasks. Best price-performance ratio in the Claude family.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet
AnthropicPrevious generation Sonnet. Still excellent for coding tasks at the same price point.
Claude 3.5 Haiku
AnthropicFast, cost-effective model for high-volume tasks. Great for code review and simple queries.
Claude 3 Opus
AnthropicFirst generation Opus. Highest reasoning capability in the Claude 3 family.
Claude 3 Sonnet
AnthropicFirst generation Sonnet. Balanced performance for general tasks.
Claude 3 Haiku
AnthropicCheapest Claude model. Fast responses for simple tasks and basic coding.