Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallb… scores 40.6 points higher (51.9 vs 11.3) but costs 51× as much to run the benchmark ($2177 vs $42.5; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallb… when you need intelligence above 11.3, and Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) when 11.3 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 51.9 | 11.3 | −78.2% Mistral Small 4 (Reas… is 78.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,176.82 | $42.50 | −98.0% Mistral Small 4 (Reas… is 98.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 32.10s | 14.50s | −54.8% Mistral Small 4 (Reas… is 54.8% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.15 / $0.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 78.2% less intelligence, 98.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 54.8% faster end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
- Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Medium) scores 29.90 for $31.2.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5-xhigh/mistral-small-4 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5-xhigh/mistral-small-4?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill