GPT-3.5 Turbo vs Mistral Small 3
Performance benchmarks + pricing comparison — updated April 2026
GPT-3.5 Turbo
OpenAIBudget model for simple tasks. Being phased out but still widely used.
| Input | $0.500/M |
| Output | $1.50/M |
| Context | 16K tokens |
| Best For | Simple chatbots, basic text generation |
| Benchmark | 40/100 |
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 | GPT-3.5 Turbo | Mistral Small 3 | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small Script (1K lines) | $0.06 | $0.01 | Mistral Small 3 saves $0.05 (80%) |
| Medium Feature (10K lines) | $0.48 | $0.10 | Mistral Small 3 saves $0.38 (80%) |
| Large Project (50K lines) | $2.38 | $0.47 | Mistral Small 3 saves $1.90 (80%) |
| Code Review (5K lines) | $0.13 | $0.02 | Mistral Small 3 saves $0.10 (80%) |
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
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Claude 3.5 Sonnet
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Claude 3.5 Haiku
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Claude 3 Opus
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Claude 3 Sonnet
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