Compare / Mistral Small 4 vs Kimi K3
Mistral Small 4 vs Kimi K3
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).
Mistral Small 4 or Kimi K3? The short answer
Pick Kimi K3 if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 43.6 against 11.3). Pick Mistral Small 4 if cost matters more: it costs 14 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 $0.054 per game of bullet chess on BulletBench (14 times less).
- Kimi K3 scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 43.6 against 11.3.
- Mistral Small 4 writes faster: 164 tokens a second against 45.
- Kimi K3 is newer: released 16 Jul 2026, against 16 Mar 2026 for Mistral Small 4.
- On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Kimi K3 does better for agents and tool use and reasoning and knowledge.
At a glance
| Mistral Small 4 | Kimi K3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Price per million tokens | $0.15 in · $0.60 out | $3.00 in · $15.00 out |
| Blended (3 in : 1 out) | $0.26 | $6.00 |
| Cheapest host, blended | $0.26 (Mistral) | $3.70 (Morph, FP8) |
| Cost per game of bullet chess (BulletBench) | $0.004 | $0.054 |
| Cached input, per million | $0.015 cached input | $0.30 cached input |
| Intelligence Index | 11.3 | 43.6 |
| Spring Prompt overall | – | 50 |
| Output speed, tokens a second | 164 | 45 |
| Context window | 262,144 tokens | 1,048,576 tokens |
| Released | 16 Mar 2026 | 16 Jul 2026 (newer) |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Developer based in | France | China |
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 | Mistral Small 4 | Kimi K3 |
|---|---|---|
| Product listingsTurning a sparse product feed and photos into listings that can go live | not measured | 13 of 20 |
| Decks from an analysisTurning a finished analysis into a deck you could present as it is | not measured | 8 of 19 |
| Marketing planningPlanning a year of ad spend without overspending | not measured | 8 of 19 |
| Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls | 132 of 164 | 34 of 164 |
| Professional workReal tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects | not measured | 24 of 51 |
| Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge | 131 of 198 | 15 of 198 |
| WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality | 116 of 188 | 11 of 188 |
| Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers | not measured | 28 of 152 |
| Speed under pressureGood decisions against a real clock (fast chess) | 9 of 22 | 19 of 22 |
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 | Mistral Small 4 | Kimi K3 |
|---|---|---|
| BulletBench measured by Spring Prompt · 3 results | ||
| Cost per game · Bullet 60sUS dollars, lower is better | $0.0039no reasoning | $0.0540low reasoning |
| Ladder Elo · Bullet 60sladder Elo, higher is better | 367no reasoning | 33low reasoning |
| Games lost on time · Bullet 60s% of games, lower is better | 25.0%no reasoning | 91.7%low reasoning |
| Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results | ||
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better | 11.3 | 43.6max reasoning |
| GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better | 76.9% | 93.5%max reasoning |
| Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better | 9.9% | 46.9%max reasoning |
Show all 16 results (10 more)
| Measure | Mistral Small 4 | Kimi K3 |
|---|---|---|
| BulletBench measured by Spring Prompt · 2 results | ||
| Invalid moves · Bullet 60s% of moves, lower is better | 0.6%no reasoning | 0.0%low reasoning |
| Median move time · Bullet 60smilliseconds, lower is better | 0.6 sno reasoning | 2.6 slow reasoning |
| Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 8 results | ||
| Terminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks, higher is better | 21.0% | 85.0%max reasoning |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0% of tasks, higher is better | 0.0% | 12.6%low reasoning |
| τ-bench banking% of tasks, higher is better | 4.9% | 46.0%max reasoning |
| Artificial Analysis Coding Indexindex score, higher is better | 26.6 | 76.2max reasoning |
| Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better | 49.7% | 88.7%max reasoning |
| Output speedtokens per second, higher is better | 164 | 45.0max reasoning |
| SciCode% of problems, higher is better | 38.8% | 59.5%max reasoning |
| Time to first answer tokenseconds, lower is better | 0.47no reasoning | 47.3max reasoning |
Quick answers
Is Mistral Small 4 better than Kimi K3?
Pick Kimi K3 if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 43.6 against 11.3). Pick Mistral Small 4 if cost matters more: it costs 14 times less per game of bullet chess on BulletBench. Mistral Small 4 is also faster.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 4 or Kimi K3?
Mistral Small 4 is cheaper to run: $0.004 against $0.054 per game of bullet chess on BulletBench (14 times less).
Which is faster, Mistral Small 4 or Kimi K3?
Mistral Small 4 writes about 164 tokens a second on its usual API, against 45 for Kimi K3 (Artificial Analysis).
Run Mistral Small 4 and Kimi K3 on your own prompt
Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.