Compare / Qwen3.8-Max (0902) vs Mistral Medium 3.5
Qwen3.8-Max (0902) vs Mistral Medium 3.5
Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 77 results on 5 sources that measured both models.
AlibabaQwen3.8-Max (0902)
Mistral AIMistral Medium 3.5
Qwen3.8-Max (0902) wins 509 too close to callMistral Medium 3.5 wins 18
Of the 77 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.
Qwen3.8-Max (0902) or Mistral Medium 3.5? The short answer
Pick Qwen3.8-Max (0902) if quality matters most: it scores higher (Spring Prompt overall 48 against 18). Pick Mistral Medium 3.5 if cost matters more: it costs 3.2 times less per product listing on CatalogBench. Mistral Medium 3.5 is also faster.
- Spring Prompt overall: Qwen3.8-Max (0902) 48, Mistral Medium 3.5 18 (out of 100; how the score works).
- Mistral Medium 3.5 is cheaper to run: $0.008 against $0.026 per product listing on CatalogBench (3.2 times less).
- Qwen3.8-Max (0902) scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 45.4 against 14.2.
- Mistral Medium 3.5 writes faster: 160 tokens a second against 37.
- Qwen3.8-Max (0902) is newer: released 3 Aug 2026, against 28 Apr 2026 for Mistral Medium 3.5.
- On our own benchmarks, on the results both models have: Qwen3.8-Max (0902) does better for decks from an analysis and marketing planning.
- On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Qwen3.8-Max (0902) does better for agents and tool use, reasoning and knowledge, writing and sticking to the facts.
Head to head
48
Spring Prompt overall
18
45.4
Intelligence Index
14.2
$3.00
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$3.00
37
Output speed, tokens a second
160
1,000,000
Context window, tokens
262,144
Every fact side by side
| Qwen3.8-Max (0902) | Mistral Medium 3.5 | |
|---|---|---|
| Price per million tokens | $2.00 in · $6.00 out | $1.50 in · $7.50 out |
| Blended (3 in : 1 out) | $3.00 | $3.00 |
| Cheapest host, blended | – | $3.00 (Mistral) |
| Cost per product listing (CatalogBench) | $0.026 | $0.008 |
| Cached input, per million | – | $0.15 cached input |
| Intelligence Index | 45.4 | 14.2 |
| Spring Prompt overall | 48 | 18 |
| Output speed, tokens a second | 37 | 160 |
| Context window | 1,000,000 tokens | 262,144 tokens |
| Released | 3 Aug 2026 (newer) | 28 Apr 2026 |
| 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.
Product listingsTurning a sparse product feed and photos into listings that can go live
17 of 20
14 of 20
Decks from an analysisTurning a finished analysis into a deck you could present as it is
11 of 19
16 of 19
User surveysPlanning a user survey and reading its results without being misled
not measured
7 of 8
Marketing planningPlanning a year of ad spend without overspending
14 of 19
19 of 19
Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls
7 of 164
93 of 164
Professional workReal tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects
18 of 51
not measured
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge
17 of 198
122 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality
16 of 188
86 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers
38 of 152
100 of 152
Speed under pressureGood decisions against a real clock (fast chess)
24 of 24
9 of 23
From our research
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 | Qwen3.8-Max (0902) | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| CatalogBench measured by Spring Prompt · 3 results | ||
| Cost per productUS dollars, lower is better 15 · 8 of 20 measured | $0.0256 | $0.0080 |
| Reliably publish-ready% of products, higher is better 13 · 16 of 20 measured | 28.6% | 17.9% |
| Reliably publish-ready · sales brief% of products, higher is better 18 · 9 of 20 measured | 0.0% | 10.7% |
| DeckBench measured by Spring Prompt · 3 results | ||
| Cost per deckUS dollars, lower is better 11 · 5 of 19 measured | $0.15 | $0.0448 |
| Deck ratingrating, higher is betterThe rating weighs each win by how strong the other deck was; the win rate counts wins against whichever decks a model happened to meet, so the two can disagree. 11 · 16 of 19 measured | 1,100 | 646 |
| Accurate decks% of tasks, higher is better 8 · 16 of 19 measured | 50.0% | 0.0% |
| ROASBench measured by Spring Prompt · 3 results | ||
| Overall scorescore out of 100, higher is better 14 · 19 of 19 measured | 25.4 | 15.2 |
| Audience scorescore out of 100, higher is better 17 · 19 of 19 measured | 39.7 | 28.5 |
| Business scorescore out of 100, higher is better 14 · 19 of 19 measured | 15.6 | 3.4 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results | ||
| Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 20 · 99 of 387 measured | 1,482 | 1,427 |
| Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 22 · 97 of 163 measured | 1,472 | 1,431 |
| Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 16 · 98 of 380 measured | 1,484 | 1,430 |
| Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results | ||
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 14 · 133 of 243 measured | 45.4 | 14.2 |
| GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 15 · 139 of 231 measured | 92.8% | 74.8% |
| Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 24 · 131 of 242 measured | 43.1% | 13.8% |
Show all 77 results (62 more)
| Measure | Qwen3.8-Max (0902) | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| CatalogBench measured by Spring Prompt · 27 results | ||
| Channel compliance% of products, higher is better 1 · 1 of 20 measured | 100.0% | 100.0% |
| Channel rules broken% of products, lower is better 11 · 1 of 20 measured | 0.6% | 0.0% |
| Channel rules broken · sales brief% of products, lower is better 19 · 15 of 20 measured | 3.0% | 1.2% |
| Claims to check% of products, lower is better 1 · 18 of 20 measured | 0.0% | 3.6% |
| Claims to check · sales brief% of products, lower is better 13 · 18 of 20 measured | 1.3% | 25.6% |
| Conflicts caught% of conflicts, higher is better 1 · 19 of 20 measured | 100.0% | 90.9% |
| Content quality% of checks, higher is better 18 · 19 of 20 measured | 94.2% | 94.1% |
| Content quality · sales brief% of checks, higher is better 19 · 17 of 20 measured | 93.6% | 94.1% |
| Decision accuracy% of decisions, higher is better 16 · 18 of 20 measured | 93.3% | 92.6% |
| Failed outputs% of products, lower is better 19 · 1 of 20 measured | 3.6% | 0.0% |
| Failed outputs · sales brief% of products, lower is better 19 · 1 of 20 measured | 3.6% | 0.0% |
| Field accuracy% of missing fields, higher is better 19 · 16 of 20 measured | 90.3% | 91.7% |
| Invented values% of filled values, lower is better 15 · 1 of 20 measured | 2.7% | 0.0% |
| Missing UK information% of products, lower is better 1 · 1 of 20 measured | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Missing UK information · sales brief% of products, lower is better 1 · 1 of 20 measured | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Not findable% of products, lower is better 4 · 19 of 20 measured | 3.6% | 14.3% |
| Not findable · sales brief% of products, lower is better 2 · 17 of 20 measured | 1.8% | 10.1% |
| Publish-ready listings% of products, higher is better 12 · 18 of 20 measured | 50.0% | 29.8% |
| Publish-ready listings · sales brief% of products, higher is better 18 · 12 of 20 measured | 7.7% | 17.3% |
| Unsupported claims% of products, lower is better 10 · 18 of 20 measured | 26.8% | 49.4% |
| Unsupported claimsclaims per product, lower is better 10 · 18 of 20 measured | 0.69 | 1.74 |
| Unsupported claims · sales briefclaims per product, lower is better 19 · 15 of 20 measured | 4.52 | 3.55 |
| Unsupported claims · sales brief% of products, lower is better 19 · 13 of 20 measured | 84.5% | 76.8% |
| Wrong attributes% of products, lower is better 16 · 18 of 20 measured | 21.4% | 31.0% |
| Wrong attributes · sales brief% of products, lower is better 13 · 19 of 20 measured | 19.6% | 36.3% |
| Wrong category or variant% of products, lower is better 4 · 20 of 20 measured | 1.8% | 11.3% |
| Wrong category or variant · sales brief% of products, lower is better 10 · 20 of 20 measured | 2.4% | 13.1% |
| DeckBench measured by Spring Prompt · 13 results | ||
| Caveat dropped% of tasks, lower is better 10 · 1 of 19 measured | 16.7% | 0.0% |
| Clean layout% of tasks, higher is better 6 · 6 of 19 measured | 66.7% | 66.7% |
| Design quality% of the maximum, higher is better 9 · 17 of 19 measured | 67.0% | 43.7% |
| Draft figure quoted% of tasks, lower is better 11 · 16 of 19 measured | 33.3% | 50.0% |
| Findings missing% of tasks, lower is better 1 · 1 of 19 measured | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Head-to-head win rate% of comparisons, higher is betterThe rating weighs each win by how strong the other deck was; the win rate counts wins against whichever decks a model happened to meet, so the two can disagree. 10 · 17 of 19 measured | 61.5% | 18.2% |
| Layout defects% of tasks, lower is better 6 · 6 of 19 measured | 33.3% | 33.3% |
| Misleading metric used% of tasks, lower is better 1 · 1 of 19 measured | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Presentable decks% of tasks, higher is better 5 · 11 of 19 measured | 33.3% | 0.0% |
| Recommendation late or wrong% of tasks, lower is better 1 · 13 of 19 measured | 0.0% | 50.0% |
| Slides needing work% of tasks, lower is better 10 · 10 of 19 measured | 50.0% | 50.0% |
| Unsupported claims% of tasks, lower is better 10 · 13 of 19 measured | 16.7% | 33.3% |
| Unsupported numbers% of tasks, lower is better 1 · 1 of 19 measured | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| ROASBench measured by Spring Prompt · 6 results | ||
| Consistency scorescore out of 100, higher is better 13 · 18 of 19 measured | 19.3 | 8.7 |
| Contribution profitsimulated US dollars, higher is better 14 · 18 of 19 measured | $99,775 | −$159,882 |
| Cost of a runUS dollars, lower is better 15 · 7 of 19 measured | $0.73 | $0.15 |
| Months over budgetmonths of 12, lower is better 17 · 19 of 19 measured | 2 | 3 |
| Planning scorescore out of 100, higher is better 9 · 1 of 19 measured | 54.8 | 55.2 |
| Return on ad spendprofit per $1 spent, higher is better 14 · 18 of 19 measured | $0.09 | −$0.17 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 8 results | ||
| Confirmed task success · AgentIPS effect estimate, higher is better 20 · 45 of 48 measured | 0.05arena agent | -0.15arena agent |
| Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 17 · 95 of 385 measured | 1,468 | 1,400 |
| Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 20 · 119 of 338 measured | 1,513 | 1,435 |
| Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 25 · 92 of 387 measured | 1,474 | 1,422 |
| Praise over complaint · AgentIPS effect estimate, higher is better 20 · 45 of 48 measured | 0.03arena agent | -0.18arena agent |
| Steerability · AgentIPS effect estimate, higher is better 18 · 39 of 48 measured | 0.03arena agent | -0.06arena agent |
| Tool grounding · AgentIPS effect estimate, higher is better 43 · 46 of 48 measured | -0.01arena agent | -0.02arena agent |
| Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 18 · 100 of 386 measured | 1,472 | 1,405 |
| Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 8 results | ||
| Terminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks, higher is better 5 · 62 of 130 measured | 88.8% | 50.6% |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0% of tasks, higher is better 12 · 66 of 112 measured | 38.9% | 0.0% |
| τ-bench banking% of tasks, higher is better 7 · 60 of 121 measured | 47.8% | 15.1% |
| Artificial Analysis Coding Indexindex score, higher is better 10 · 62 of 131 measured | 76.2 | 46.9 |
| Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 35 · 113 of 233 measured | 80.3% | 69.3% |
| Output speedtokens per second, higher is better 71 · 17 of 74 measured | 37.0 | 160 |
| SciCode% of problems, higher is better 36 · 77 of 113 measured | 52.1% | 40.2% |
| Time to first answer tokenseconds, lower is better 74 · 48 of 74 measured | 55.8 | 13.1 |
Compare them with other models
- Alibaba vs Mistral AIEvery model from both labs, best against best
- Qwen3.8-Max (0902) vs Claude Opus 5.5Most intelligent at $3–10 per million tokens
- Qwen3.8-Max (0902) vs Claude Haiku 5.5Cheapest with similar intelligence
- Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Claude Opus 5.5Most intelligent at $3–10 per million tokens
- Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Mistral Large 4Most intelligent from the EU
Quick answers
Is Qwen3.8-Max (0902) better than Mistral Medium 3.5?
Pick Qwen3.8-Max (0902) if quality matters most: it scores higher (Spring Prompt overall 48 against 18). Pick Mistral Medium 3.5 if cost matters more: it costs 3.2 times less per product listing on CatalogBench. Mistral Medium 3.5 is also faster.
Which is cheaper, Qwen3.8-Max (0902) or Mistral Medium 3.5?
Mistral Medium 3.5 is cheaper to run: $0.008 against $0.026 per product listing on CatalogBench (3.2 times less).
Which is faster, Qwen3.8-Max (0902) or Mistral Medium 3.5?
Mistral Medium 3.5 writes about 160 tokens a second on its usual API, against 37 for Qwen3.8-Max (0902) (Artificial Analysis).
Which is better for product listings, Qwen3.8-Max (0902) or Mistral Medium 3.5?
Mistral Medium 3.5 ranks 14 of 20 models on sale for turning a sparse product feed and photos into listings that can go live, against 17 for Qwen3.8-Max (0902).
Which is better for decks from an analysis, Qwen3.8-Max (0902) or Mistral Medium 3.5?
Qwen3.8-Max (0902) ranks 11 of 19 models on sale for turning a finished analysis into a deck you could present as it is, against 16 for Mistral Medium 3.5.
Which is better for marketing planning, Qwen3.8-Max (0902) or Mistral Medium 3.5?
Qwen3.8-Max (0902) ranks 14 of 19 models on sale for planning a year of ad spend without overspending, against 19 for Mistral Medium 3.5.
Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3.8-Max (0902) or Mistral Medium 3.5?
Qwen3.8-Max (0902) ranks 7 of 164 models on sale for multi-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls, against 93 for Mistral Medium 3.5.
Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3.8-Max (0902) or Mistral Medium 3.5?
Qwen3.8-Max (0902): 1,000,000 tokens, against 262,144 for Mistral Medium 3.5.
Run Qwen3.8-Max (0902) and Mistral Medium 3.5 on your own prompt
Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.