Compare / Muse Spark 1.3 vs Mistral Small 4
Muse Spark 1.3 vs Mistral Small 4
Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 16 results on 2 sources that measured both models.
Results as of 8 October 2026 (catalogue release 2026-10-08-4199ce0620fe).
Muse Spark 1.3 or Mistral Small 4? The short answer
Pick Muse Spark 1.3 if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 48.1 against 11.3). Pick Mistral Small 4 if cost matters more: it costs 3.7 times less per game of bullet chess on BulletBench. Mistral Small 4 is also faster.
- Mistral Small 4 is cheaper to run: $0.004 against $0.014 per game of bullet chess on BulletBench (3.7 times less).
- Muse Spark 1.3 scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 48.1 against 11.3.
- Mistral Small 4 writes faster: 164 tokens a second against 114.
- Muse Spark 1.3 is newer: released 2 Sep 2026, against 16 Mar 2026 for Mistral Small 4.
- On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Muse Spark 1.3 does better for agents and tool use and reasoning and knowledge.
At a glance
| Muse Spark 1.3 | Mistral Small 4 | |
|---|---|---|
| Price per million tokens | $1.25 in · $4.25 out | $0.15 in · $0.60 out |
| Blended (3 in : 1 out) | $2.00 | $0.26 |
| Cheapest host, blended | – | $0.26 (Mistral) |
| Cost per game of bullet chess (BulletBench) | $0.014 | $0.004 |
| Cached input, per million | $0.15 cached input | $0.015 cached input |
| Intelligence Index | 48.1 | 11.3 |
| Spring Prompt overall | 65 | – |
| Output speed, tokens a second | 114 | 164 |
| Context window | 1,048,576 tokens | 262,144 tokens |
| Released | 2 Sep 2026 (newer) | 16 Mar 2026 |
| 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 | Muse Spark 1.3 | Mistral Small 4 |
|---|---|---|
| Product listingsTurning a sparse product feed and photos into listings that can go live | 9 of 20 | not measured |
| Decks from an analysisTurning a finished analysis into a deck you could present as it is | 14 of 19 | not measured |
| Marketing planningPlanning a year of ad spend without overspending | 12 of 19 | not measured |
| Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls | 9 of 164 | 132 of 164 |
| Professional workReal tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects | 8 of 51 | not measured |
| Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge | 8 of 198 | 131 of 198 |
| WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality | 5 of 188 | 116 of 188 |
| Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers | 11 of 152 | not measured |
| Speed under pressureGood decisions against a real clock (fast chess) | 19 of 22 | 9 of 22 |
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. 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 | Muse Spark 1.3 | Mistral Small 4 |
|---|---|---|
| BulletBench measured by Spring Prompt · 3 results | ||
| Cost per game · Bullet 60sUS dollars, lower is better | $0.0142minimal reasoning | $0.0039no reasoning |
| Ladder Elo · Bullet 60sladder Elo, higher is better | 33minimal reasoning | 367no reasoning |
| Games lost on time · Bullet 60s% of games, lower is better | 91.7%minimal reasoning | 25.0%no reasoning |
| Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results | ||
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better | 48.1max reasoning | 11.3 |
| GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better | 94.1%xhigh reasoning | 76.9% |
| Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better | 48.7%max reasoning | 9.9% |
Show all 16 results (10 more)
| Measure | Muse Spark 1.3 | Mistral Small 4 |
|---|---|---|
| BulletBench measured by Spring Prompt · 2 results | ||
| Invalid moves · Bullet 60s% of moves, lower is better | 0.0%minimal reasoning | 0.6%no reasoning |
| Median move time · Bullet 60smilliseconds, lower is better | 4.2 sminimal reasoning | 0.6 sno reasoning |
| Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 8 results | ||
| Terminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks, higher is better | 85.4%xhigh reasoning | 21.0% |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0% of tasks, higher is better | 33.3%max reasoning | 0.0% |
| τ-bench banking% of tasks, higher is better | 50.5%max reasoning | 4.9% |
| Artificial Analysis Coding Indexindex score, higher is better | 76.5xhigh reasoning | 26.6 |
| Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better | 83.0%max reasoning | 49.7% |
| Output speedtokens per second, higher is better | 114xhigh reasoning | 164 |
| SciCode% of problems, higher is better | 59.7%xhigh reasoning | 38.8% |
| Time to first answer tokenseconds, lower is better | 45.4xhigh reasoning | 0.47no reasoning |
Quick answers
Is Muse Spark 1.3 better than Mistral Small 4?
Pick Muse Spark 1.3 if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 48.1 against 11.3). Pick Mistral Small 4 if cost matters more: it costs 3.7 times less per game of bullet chess on BulletBench. Mistral Small 4 is also faster.
Which is cheaper, Muse Spark 1.3 or Mistral Small 4?
Mistral Small 4 is cheaper to run: $0.004 against $0.014 per game of bullet chess on BulletBench (3.7 times less).
Which is faster, Muse Spark 1.3 or Mistral Small 4?
Mistral Small 4 writes about 164 tokens a second on its usual API, against 114 for Muse Spark 1.3 (Artificial Analysis).
Run Muse Spark 1.3 and Mistral Small 4 on your own prompt
Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.