Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) vs Mistral Large 4 Preview
Which is better for the money: Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) by Anthropic or Mistral Large 4 Preview by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Mistral Large 4 Preview scores 17.7 points higher (38.4 vs 20.7) but costs 1.1× as much to run the benchmark ($1608 vs $1501; both premium class). Pick Mistral Large 4 Preview when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning).
| Metric | Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) | Mistral Large 4 Preview | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 20.7 | 38.4 | +85.5% Mistral Large 4 Previ… is 85.5% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,501.22 | $1,607.86 | +7.1% Mistral Large 4 Previ… is 7.1% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 21.58s | 24.31s | +12.7% Mistral Large 4 Previ… is 12.7% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $3.00 / $15.0 | $1.36 / $4.18 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Mistral Large 4 Preview vs Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning): 85.5% more intelligence, 7.1% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 12.7% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Mistral Large 4 Preview is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning)Mistral Large 4 PreviewToday's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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