Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Mistral Medium 3.5
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Mistral Medium 3.5 by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… scores 41.8 points higher (56.0 vs 14.2) but costs 3.2× as much to run the benchmark ($4057 vs $1264; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… when you need intelligence above 14.2, and Mistral Medium 3.5 when 14.2 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.0 | 14.2 | −74.6% Mistral Medium 3.5 is 74.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,056.65 | $1,263.80 | −68.8% Mistral Medium 3.5 is 68.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 123.06s | 17.96s | −85.4% Mistral Medium 3.5 is 85.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $1.50 / $7.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 74.6% less intelligence, 68.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 85.4% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- 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 Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)Mistral Medium 3.5Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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