Mistral Small 3 vs Phi-3 Mini

Performance benchmarks + pricing comparison — updated April 2026

Mistral Small 3

Mistral

Mistral's cost-effective model. Very affordable for general-purpose tasks.

Input	$0.100/M
Output	$0.300/M
Context	32K tokens
Best For	High-volume tasks, cost optimization
Benchmark	42/100

Microsoft

Microsoft's compact Phi-3 model. Small but capable model for edge and IoT deployment.

Input	$0.050/M
Output	$0.100/M
Context	128K tokens
Best For	Edge AI, IoT devices, lightweight applications

Estimated cost per project with 30% cache hit rate. Actual costs may vary based on usage patterns.

Scenario	Mistral Small 3	Phi-3 Mini	Savings
Small Script (1K lines)	$0.01	<$0.01	Phi-3 Mini saves <$0.01 (62%)
Medium Feature (10K lines)	$0.10	$0.04	Phi-3 Mini saves $0.06 (61%)
Large Project (50K lines)	$0.47	$0.19	Phi-3 Mini saves $0.29 (61%)
Code Review (5K lines)	$0.02	$0.01	Phi-3 Mini saves $0.01 (55%)

Phi-3 Mini wins on both price and performance — $0.050/M input with a benchmark score of N/A/100.

For most developers, this is the clear choice between these two models.

Anthropic's balanced model for coding and general tasks. Best price-performance ratio in the Claude family.

Anthropic's most powerful model. Best for complex reasoning and challenging coding tasks.

Previous generation Sonnet. Still excellent for coding tasks at the same price point.

Fast, cost-effective model for high-volume tasks. Great for code review and simple queries.

First generation Opus. Highest reasoning capability in the Claude 3 family.

First generation Sonnet. Balanced performance for general tasks.