Claude Opus 5 (Low) vs Ministral 3 8B
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Low) by Anthropic or Ministral 3 8B by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (Low) scores 33.9 points higher (39.4 vs 5.5) but costs 57× as much to run the benchmark ($1561 vs $27.5; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Low) when you need intelligence above 5.5, and Ministral 3 8B when 5.5 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Low) | Ministral 3 8B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 39.4 | 5.5 | −86.0% Ministral 3 8B is 86.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,560.91 | $27.47 | −98.2% Ministral 3 8B is 98.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.37s | 4.94s | −56.6% Ministral 3 8B is 56.6% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.15 / $0.15 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Ministral 3 8B vs Claude Opus 5 (Low): 86.0% less intelligence, 98.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 56.6% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Ministral 3 8B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Claude Opus 5 (Low)Ministral 3 8BToday'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-5-low/ministral-3-8b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-low/ministral-3-8b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill