Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Mistral Large 4 Preview
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Mistral Large 4 Preview by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallbac… scores 17.6 points higher (56.0 vs 38.4) but costs 4.5× as much to run the benchmark ($7260 vs $1608; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallbac… when you need intelligence above 38.4, and Mistral Large 4 Preview when 38.4 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | Mistral Large 4 Preview | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.0 | 38.4 | −31.4% Mistral Large 4 Previ… is 31.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $7,259.50 | $1,607.86 | −77.9% Mistral Large 4 Previ… is 77.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 367.63s | 25.45s | −93.1% Mistral Large 4 Previ… is 93.1% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $1.36 / $4.18 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Mistral Large 4 Preview vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback): 31.4% less intelligence, 77.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 93.1% faster end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Mistral Large 4 Preview is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5/mistral-large-4 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5/mistral-large-4?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill