Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) vs Ministral 3 3B
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) by Anthropic or Ministral 3 3B 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 Sonnet 4.6 (Max) scores 25.3 points higher (30.1 vs 4.8) but costs 403× as much to run the benchmark ($4925 vs $12.2; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) when you need intelligence above 4.8, and Ministral 3 3B when 4.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) | Ministral 3 3B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 30.1 | 4.8 | −84.1% Ministral 3 3B is 84.1% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,924.80 | $12.23 | −99.8% Ministral 3 3B is 99.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 148.96s | 3.13s | −97.9% Ministral 3 3B is 97.9% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $3.00 / $15.0 | $0.10 / $0.10 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Ministral 3 3B vs Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max): 84.1% less intelligence, 99.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 97.9% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Ministral 3 3B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max)Ministral 3 3BToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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