Compare / Qwen3.6-Plus vs Mistral Large 3

Qwen3.6-Plus vs Mistral Large 3

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 20 results on 3 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3.6-Plus Released 31 Mar 2026 · $0.33 in · $1.95 out
Mistral AIMistral Large 3 Released 2 Dec 2025 · $0.50 in · $1.50 out
Qwen3.6-Plus wins 181 too close to callMistral Large 3 wins 1

Of the 20 results both models have, the better value on each. Results whose reported ranges overlap are too close to call.

Results as of 13 October 2026 (catalogue release 2026-10-13-2e2420e3c5cc). See also Alibaba vs Mistral AI, every model from both labs.

Qwen3.6-Plus or Mistral Large 3? The short answer

Pick Qwen3.6-Plus: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 27.0 against 9.3) at about the same price.

  • They cost about the same: $0.73 and $0.75 per million tokens (three input to one output).
  • Qwen3.6-Plus scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 27.0 against 9.3.
  • Qwen3.6-Plus is newer: released 31 Mar 2026, against 2 Dec 2025 for Mistral Large 3.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Qwen3.6-Plus does better for agents and tool use, reasoning and knowledge and writing.

Head to head

27.0
Intelligence Index
9.3
$0.73
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$0.75
1,000,000
Context window, tokens
262,144

Every fact side by side

Qwen3.6-PlusMistral Large 3
Price per million tokens$0.33 in · $1.95 out$0.50 in · $1.50 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.73$0.75
Cheapest host, blended–$0.75 (Mistral)
Cached input, per million–$0.050 cached input
Intelligence Index27.09.3
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second–78
Context window1,000,000 tokens262,144 tokens
Released31 Mar 2026 (newer)2 Dec 2025
WeightsClosedClosed
Developer based inChinaFrance

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.

Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls 63 of 164 134 of 164
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 67 of 198 158 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 54 of 188 97 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 80 of 152 122 of 152

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.

MeasureQwen3.6-PlusMistral Large 3
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 76 · 120 of 387 measured 1,443 1,414
Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 84 · 92 of 163 measured 1,438 1,434
Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 75 · 124 of 380 measured 1,446 1,410
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 62 · 180 of 243 measured 27.0 9.3
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 58 · 161 of 231 measured 88.2% 68.0%
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 84 · 213 of 242 measured 27.8% 4.2%
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 49 · 104 of 230 measured 58.2thinking reasoning 41.6no reasoning
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 25 · 69 of 230 measured 8.0%thinking reasoning 15.0%no reasoning
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 96 · 35 of 230 measured 0.35no reasoning 0.38no reasoning
Show all 20 results (11 more)
MeasureQwen3.6-PlusMistral Large 3
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 4 results
Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 82 · 126 of 385 measured 1,407 1,374
Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 68 · 129 of 338 measured 1,476 1,427
Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 74 · 123 of 387 measured 1,435 1,400
Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 76 · 121 of 386 measured 1,423 1,389
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 7 results
Terminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks, higher is better 47 · 101 of 130 measured 61.4% 12.0%
τ-bench banking% of tasks, higher is better 48 · 98 of 121 measured 20.8% 5.8%
Artificial Analysis Coding Indexindex score, higher is better 50 · 104 of 131 measured 54.5 20.1
IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 29 · 156 of 195 measured 75.2% 36.2%
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 54 · 175 of 233 measured 78.3% 36.0%
Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 23 · 107 of 190 measured 43.9% 15.9%
τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 7 · 155 of 193 measured 97.7% 24.6%

Quick answers

Is Qwen3.6-Plus better than Mistral Large 3?

Pick Qwen3.6-Plus: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 27.0 against 9.3) at about the same price.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.6-Plus or Mistral Large 3?

They cost about the same: $0.73 and $0.75 per million tokens (three input to one output).

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3.6-Plus or Mistral Large 3?

Qwen3.6-Plus ranks 63 of 164 models on sale for multi-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls, against 134 for Mistral Large 3.

Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3.6-Plus or Mistral Large 3?

Qwen3.6-Plus ranks 67 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 158 for Mistral Large 3.

Which is better for writing, Qwen3.6-Plus or Mistral Large 3?

Qwen3.6-Plus ranks 54 of 188 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 97 for Mistral Large 3.

Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3.6-Plus or Mistral Large 3?

Qwen3.6-Plus ranks 80 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 122 for Mistral Large 3.

Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3.6-Plus or Mistral Large 3?

Qwen3.6-Plus: 1,000,000 tokens, against 262,144 for Mistral Large 3.

Run Qwen3.6-Plus and Mistral Large 3 on your own prompt

Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.