Compare / Claude Sonnet 5 vs Mistral Small 3
Claude Sonnet 5 vs Mistral Small 3
Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 13 results on 3 sources that measured both models.
Claude Sonnet 5 or Mistral Small 3? The short answer
- Mistral Small 3 is cheaper: $0.058 against $4.00 per million tokens, 70 times less.
- Claude Sonnet 5 scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 38.2 against 6.7.
- On our business benchmarks, Claude Sonnet 5 ranks higher for reasoning and knowledge and writing.
- On our business benchmarks, Mistral Small 3 ranks higher for sticking to the facts.
At a glance
| Claude Sonnet 5 | Mistral Small 3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Price per million tokens | $2.00 in · $10.00 out | $0.050 in · $0.080 out |
| Blended (3 in : 1 out) | $4.00 | $0.058 |
| Cheapest host, blended | $4.00 (Claude Platform on AWS) | – |
| Intelligence Index | 38.2 | 6.7 |
| Spring Prompt overall | – | – |
| Output speed, tokens a second | – | – |
| Context window | 1,000,000 tokens | 32,768 tokens |
| Weights | Closed | Open |
| Developer based in | the US | 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 models available today, for each kind of work, from our own benchmarks and licensed sources. The better rank is in green.
| Use case | Claude Sonnet 5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls | 33 of 161 | not measured |
| Professional workReal tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects | 19 of 51 | not measured |
| Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge | 32 of 195 | 190 of 195 |
| WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality | 36 of 187 | 155 of 187 |
| Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers | 84 of 153 | 11 of 153 |
Every shared result
| Benchmark | Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | Business, management and financeArena rating | 1,465 | 1,259 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | Creative writingArena rating | 1,435 | 1,227 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | Expert promptsArena rating | 1,512 | 1,259 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | Instruction followingArena rating | 1,467 | 1,255 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | OverallArena rating | 1,462 | 1,274 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | Writing, literature and languageArena rating | 1,452 | 1,248 |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score | 38.2 | 6.70 |
| Artificial Analysisreported | GPQA Diamond% of questions | 91.1% | 46.2% |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Humanity's Last Exam% of questions | 41.3% | 3.8% |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions | 82.0% | 0.0% |
| UGI Leaderboardreported | Requested-length error% off the requested word count | 3.0% | 8.0% |
| UGI Leaderboardreported | Style adherencescore from 0 to 1 | 0.38 | 0.35 |
| UGI Leaderboardreported | Writing scorescore out of 100 | 62.7 | 33.9 |
Bold green marks the better value on that metric. Where a source reports ranges that overlap, the difference may not be meaningful; see the benchmark page for ranges.
Quick answers
Is Claude Sonnet 5 better than Mistral Small 3?
It depends on the task. Among models available today, on our benchmarks and licensed sources, Claude Sonnet 5 ranks higher for reasoning and knowledge and writing; Mistral Small 3 ranks higher for sticking to the facts.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5 or Mistral Small 3?
Mistral Small 3 costs $0.058 per million tokens (three input to one output), against $4.00 for Claude Sonnet 5.
Run Claude Sonnet 5 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.