Compare / Qwen3-32B vs Mistral Small 3
Qwen3-32B vs Mistral Small 3
Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 17 results on 4 sources that measured both models.
Of the 17 results both models have, the better value on each. Results whose reported ranges overlap are too close to call.
Results as of 9 October 2026 (catalogue release 2026-10-09-dd620e778ac5). See also Alibaba vs Mistral AI, every model from both labs.
Qwen3-32B or Mistral Small 3? The short answer
They score about the same, so pick Mistral Small 3: it costs 3.6 times less per token.
- Mistral Small 3 is cheaper: $0.058 against $0.21 per million tokens, 3.6 times less.
- Qwen3-32B scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 8.6 against 6.7.
- Qwen3-32B is newer: released 28 Apr 2025, against 30 Jan 2025 for Mistral Small 3.
- On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Qwen3-32B does better for reasoning and knowledge; Mistral Small 3 for sticking to the facts.
Head to head
Every fact side by side
| Qwen3-32B | Mistral Small 3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Price per million tokens | $0.14 in · $0.40 out | $0.050 in · $0.080 out |
| Blended (3 in : 1 out) | $0.21 | $0.058 |
| Cheapest host, blended | $0.13 (DeepInfra, FP8) | – |
| Intelligence Index | 8.6 | 6.7 |
| Spring Prompt overall | – | – |
| Output speed, tokens a second | – | – |
| Context window | 131,072 tokens | 32,768 tokens |
| Released | 28 Apr 2025 (newer) | 30 Jan 2025 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Developer based in | China | France |
Prices are the developer's list price where we have read it, otherwise the typical host on OpenRouter; see every model's price. Intelligence and speed from Artificial Analysis.
Which is better for what
Each model's rank among the models on sale today, for each kind of work, from our own benchmarks and licensed sources. Further right is better; the better rank is in green.
Every shared result
Each model's best result on every measure both have, grouped by benchmark, with the setting that produced it. Under each measure, every model that benchmark has measured is a grey tick, best to the right, so you can see where the two sit in the field. The headline measures of each benchmark come first; the rest are under "Show all". Green marks the better value; where a source reports ranges that overlap, neither is marked.
| Measure | Qwen3-32B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results | ||
| Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 195 · 279 of 387 measured | 1,347 | 1,274 |
| Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 203 · 280 of 380 measured | 1,340 | 1,259 |
| Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 205 · 281 of 385 measured | 1,304 | 1,227 |
| Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results | ||
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 188 · 222 of 243 measured | 8.6thinking reasoning | 6.7 |
| GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 167 · 209 of 231 measured | 66.8%thinking reasoning | 46.2% |
| Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 168 · 221 of 242 measured | 7.4%thinking reasoning | 3.8% |
| UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results | ||
| Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 134 · 131 of 230 measured | 33.0no reasoning | 33.9 |
| Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 99 · 25 of 230 measured | 19.0%no reasoning | 8.0% |
| Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 175 · 103 of 230 measured | 0.32no reasoning | 0.35 |
| Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard reported by Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard · 2 results | ||
| Hallucination rate · Vectara% of summaries, lower is better 24 · 10 of 104 measured | 5.9% | 5.1% |
| Answer rate · Vectara% of documents, higher is better 17 · 79 of 104 measured | 99.9% | 97.9% |
Show all 17 results (6 more)
| Measure | Qwen3-32B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results | ||
| Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 159 · 271 of 338 measured | 1,398 | 1,259 |
| Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 198 · 279 of 387 measured | 1,331 | 1,255 |
| Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 217 · 282 of 386 measured | 1,308 | 1,248 |
| Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results | ||
| IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 155 · 190 of 195 measured | 36.3%thinking reasoning | 26.4% |
| Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 222 · 222 of 233 measured | 0.0%no reasoning | 0.0% |
| τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 135 · 168 of 193 measured | 29.8%thinking reasoning | 19.6% |
Compare them with other models
Quick answers
Is Qwen3-32B better than Mistral Small 3?
They score about the same, so pick Mistral Small 3: it costs 3.6 times less per token.
Which is cheaper, Qwen3-32B or Mistral Small 3?
Mistral Small 3 is cheaper: $0.058 against $0.21 per million tokens, 3.6 times less.
Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3-32B or Mistral Small 3?
Qwen3-32B ranks 148 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 193 for Mistral Small 3.
Which is better for writing, Qwen3-32B or Mistral Small 3?
Qwen3-32B ranks 139 of 188 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 156 for Mistral Small 3.
Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3-32B or Mistral Small 3?
Mistral Small 3 ranks 9 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 22 for Qwen3-32B.
Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3-32B or Mistral Small 3?
Qwen3-32B: 131,072 tokens, against 32,768 for Mistral Small 3.
Run Qwen3-32B and Mistral Small 3 on your own prompt
Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.