Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) vs Mistral Small 3.2
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) by Anthropic or Mistral Small 3.2 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 Opus 4.8 (Max) scores 34.8 points higher (41.8 vs 7.0) but costs 56× as much to run the benchmark ($6874 vs $122; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) when you need intelligence above 7.0, and Mistral Small 3.2 when 7.0 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) | Mistral Small 3.2 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.8 | 7.0 | −83.3% Mistral Small 3.2 is 83.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,873.86 | $121.78 | −98.2% Mistral Small 3.2 is 98.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 37.99s | 11.35s | −70.1% Mistral Small 3.2 is 70.1% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.07 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Mistral Small 3.2 vs Claude Opus 4.8 (Max): 83.3% less intelligence, 98.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 70.1% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Mistral Small 3.2 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Flash scores 37.90 for $110.
Claude Opus 4.8 (Max)Mistral Small 3.2Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/mistral-small-3-2 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/mistral-small-3-2?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill