Compare / Qwen3.6-Plus vs Mistral Medium 3.1
Qwen3.6-Plus vs Mistral Medium 3.1
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.
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 Medium 3.1? The short answer
Pick Qwen3.6-Plus: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 27.0 against 9.2) at about the same price.
- They cost about the same: $0.73 and $0.80 per million tokens (three input to one output).
- Qwen3.6-Plus scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 27.0 against 9.2.
- Qwen3.6-Plus is newer: released 31 Mar 2026, against 12 Aug 2025 for Mistral Medium 3.1.
- On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Qwen3.6-Plus does better for agents and tool use, reasoning and knowledge, writing and sticking to the facts.
Head to head
Every fact side by side
| Qwen3.6-Plus | Mistral Medium 3.1 | |
|---|---|---|
| Price per million tokens | $0.33 in · $1.95 out | $0.40 in · $2.00 out |
| Blended (3 in : 1 out) | $0.73 | $0.80 |
| Cheapest host, blended | – | $0.80 (Mistral) |
| Intelligence Index | 27.0 | 9.2 |
| Spring Prompt overall | – | – |
| Output speed, tokens a second | – | – |
| Context window | 1,000,000 tokens | 131,072 tokens |
| Released | 31 Mar 2026 (newer) | 12 Aug 2025 |
| Weights | Closed | Closed |
| 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 | Qwen3.6-Plus | Mistral Medium 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results | ||
| Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 76 · 130 of 387 measured | 1,443 | 1,408 |
| Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 84 · 99 of 163 measured | 1,438 | 1,429 |
| Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 75 · 129 of 380 measured | 1,446 | 1,407 |
| Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results | ||
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 62 · 181 of 243 measured | 27.0 | 9.2 |
| GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 58 · 184 of 231 measured | 88.2% | 58.8% |
| Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 84 · 196 of 242 measured | 27.8% | 4.7% |
| UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results | ||
| Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 49 · 114 of 230 measured | 58.2thinking reasoning | 39.5 |
| Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 25 · 156 of 230 measured | 8.0%thinking reasoning | 27.0% |
| Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 96 · 24 of 230 measured | 0.35no reasoning | 0.39 |
Show all 20 results (11 more)
| Measure | Qwen3.6-Plus | Mistral Medium 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 4 results | ||
| Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 82 · 123 of 385 measured | 1,407 | 1,378 |
| Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 68 · 143 of 338 measured | 1,476 | 1,410 |
| Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 74 · 133 of 387 measured | 1,435 | 1,395 |
| Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 76 · 128 of 386 measured | 1,423 | 1,386 |
| Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 7 results | ||
| Terminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks, higher is better 47 · 96 of 130 measured | 61.4% | 13.9% |
| τ-bench banking% of tasks, higher is better 48 · 86 of 121 measured | 20.8% | 8.2% |
| Artificial Analysis Coding Indexindex score, higher is better 50 · 102 of 131 measured | 54.5 | 20.5 |
| IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 29 · 135 of 195 measured | 75.2% | 39.8% |
| Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 54 · 168 of 233 measured | 78.3% | 42.7% |
| Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 23 · 127 of 190 measured | 43.9% | 10.6% |
| τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 7 · 116 of 193 measured | 97.7% | 40.6% |
Compare them with other models
Quick answers
Is Qwen3.6-Plus better than Mistral Medium 3.1?
Pick Qwen3.6-Plus: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 27.0 against 9.2) at about the same price.
Which is cheaper, Qwen3.6-Plus or Mistral Medium 3.1?
They cost about the same: $0.73 and $0.80 per million tokens (three input to one output).
Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3.6-Plus or Mistral Medium 3.1?
Qwen3.6-Plus ranks 63 of 164 models on sale for multi-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls, against 124 for Mistral Medium 3.1.
Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3.6-Plus or Mistral Medium 3.1?
Qwen3.6-Plus ranks 67 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 160 for Mistral Medium 3.1.
Which is better for writing, Qwen3.6-Plus or Mistral Medium 3.1?
Qwen3.6-Plus ranks 54 of 188 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 112 for Mistral Medium 3.1.
Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3.6-Plus or Mistral Medium 3.1?
Qwen3.6-Plus ranks 80 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 130 for Mistral Medium 3.1.
Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3.6-Plus or Mistral Medium 3.1?
Qwen3.6-Plus: 1,000,000 tokens, against 131,072 for Mistral Medium 3.1.
Run Qwen3.6-Plus and Mistral Medium 3.1 on your own prompt
Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.