Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) vs Mistral Small 3.1
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Mistral Small 3.1 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 Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallbac… scores 28.8 points higher (35.9 vs 7.1) but costs 17× as much to run the benchmark ($482 vs $27.8; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallbac… when you need intelligence above 7.1, and Mistral Small 3.1 when 7.1 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) | Mistral Small 3.1 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 35.9 | 7.1 | −80.2% Mistral Small 3.1 is 80.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $482.13 | $27.82 | −94.2% Mistral Small 3.1 is 94.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 6.19s | 11.99s | +93.7% Mistral Small 3.1 is 93.7% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.08 / $0.14 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Mistral Small 3.1 vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback): 80.2% less intelligence, 94.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 93.7% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
- Mistral Small 3.1 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback)Mistral Small 3.1Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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