Microsoft Phi-4 vs Mistral Small 3

Performance benchmarks + pricing comparison — updated April 2026

Microsoft Phi-4

Microsoft

Microsoft's compact 14B model with strong reasoning and coding capability. Excellent value for small-scale deployments.

Input$0.100/M
Output$0.300/M
Context128K tokens
Best ForEdge deployments, local inference, budget coding
Benchmark45/100

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.

ScenarioMicrosoft Phi-4Mistral Small 3Savings
Small Script (1K lines) $0.01 $0.01 Microsoft Phi-4 saves <$0.01 (0%)
Medium Feature (10K lines) $0.10 $0.10 Microsoft Phi-4 saves <$0.01 (0%)
Large Project (50K lines) $0.47 $0.47 Microsoft Phi-4 saves <$0.01 (0%)
Code Review (5K lines) $0.02 $0.02 Microsoft Phi-4 saves <$0.01 (0%)

Verdict

Microsoft Phi-4 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