Grok 3 vs Mistral Small 3

Performance benchmarks + pricing comparison — updated April 2026

Grok 3

xAI

xAI's flagship model. Strong general-purpose capability with real-time knowledge access through X platform integration.

Input$3.00/M
Output$15.00/M
Context128K tokens
Best ForGeneral coding, research tasks, current-event-aware applications
Benchmark70/100

Mistral Small 3

Mistral

Mistral's efficient small model. Great performance for its size at very competitive pricing.

Input$0.100/M
Output$0.300/M
Context32K tokens
Best ForChat, 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.

ScenarioGrok 3Mistral Small 3Savings
Small Script (1K lines) $0.55 $0.01 Mistral Small 3 saves $0.54 (98%)
Medium Feature (10K lines) $4.05 $0.10 Mistral Small 3 saves $3.95 (98%)
Large Project (50K lines) $20.25 $0.47 Mistral Small 3 saves $19.77 (98%)
Code Review (5K lines) $0.90 $0.02 Mistral Small 3 saves $0.87 (97%)

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