Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) vs Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 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 2026-10-24.
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) scores 38.3 points higher (49.6 vs 11.3) but costs 263× as much to run the benchmark ($11161 vs $42.5; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) when you need intelligence above 11.3, and Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) when 11.3 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) | Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 49.6 | 11.3 | −77.2% Mistral Small 4 (Reas… is 77.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $11,160.86 | $42.50 | −99.6% Mistral Small 4 (Reas… is 99.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 71.92s | 14.50s | −79.8% Mistral Small 4 (Reas… is 79.8% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $0.15 / $0.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) vs Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback): 77.2% less intelligence, 99.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 79.8% faster end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 57.60 for $8708.
- Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Medium) scores 29.90 for $31.2.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5/mistral-small-4 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5/mistral-small-4?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill