Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) vs Mistral Medium 3.5
Which is better for the money: Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) by Anthropic or Mistral Medium 3.5 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
Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) scores 6.5 points higher (20.7 vs 14.2) but costs 1.2× as much to run the benchmark ($1501 vs $1264; both premium class). Pick Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Mistral Medium 3.5.
| Metric | Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 20.7 | 14.2 | −31.4% Mistral Medium 3.5 is 31.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,501.22 | $1,263.80 | −15.8% Mistral Medium 3.5 is 15.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 20.86s | 17.77s | −14.8% Mistral Medium 3.5 is 14.8% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $3.00 / $15.0 | $1.50 / $7.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning): 31.4% less intelligence, 15.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 14.8% faster 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 Medium 3.5 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 Medium 3.5Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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