Claude Fable 5.2 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.2 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-11-10.
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5.2 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 60.3 points higher (64.6 vs 4.3) but costs 511× as much to run the benchmark ($22191 vs $43.4; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Fable 5.2 (Max, Default Fallback) when you need intelligence above 4.3, and Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) when 4.3 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5.2 (Max, Default Fallback) | Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 64.6 | 4.3 | −93.3% Mistral Small 4 (Reas… is 93.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $22,191.42 | $43.43 | −99.8% Mistral Small 4 (Reas… is 99.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 258.66s | 15.97s | −93.8% Mistral Small 4 (Reas… is 93.8% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $8.00 / $40.0 | $0.15 / $0.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) vs Claude Fable 5.2 (Max, Default Fallback): 93.3% less intelligence, 99.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 93.8% faster end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Fable 5.2 (Max, Default Fallback) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (Low) scores 18.60 for $39.6.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-2/mistral-small-4 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-2/mistral-small-4?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill