Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Mistral Small 3.2
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Mistral Small 3.2 by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… scores 49.0 points higher (56.0 vs 7.0) but costs 33× as much to run the benchmark ($4057 vs $122; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… when you need intelligence above 7.0, and Mistral Small 3.2 when 7.0 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Mistral Small 3.2 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.0 | 7.0 | −87.5% Mistral Small 3.2 is 87.5% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,056.65 | $121.78 | −97.0% Mistral Small 3.2 is 97.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 123.06s | 12.50s | −89.8% Mistral Small 3.2 is 89.8% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.07 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Mistral Small 3.2 vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 87.5% less intelligence, 97.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 89.8% 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 Small 3.2 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Flash scores 37.90 for $110.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)Mistral Small 3.2Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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