Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, 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 2026-10-25.
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallbac… scores 44.7 points higher (56.0 vs 11.3) but costs 171× as much to run the benchmark ($7260 vs $42.5; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallbac… when you need intelligence above 11.3, and Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) when 11.3 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.0 | 11.3 | −79.8% Mistral Small 4 (Reas… is 79.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $7,259.50 | $42.50 | −99.4% Mistral Small 4 (Reas… is 99.4% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 380.92s | 14.99s | −96.1% Mistral Small 4 (Reas… is 96.1% 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 (Max, Default Fallback): 79.8% less intelligence, 99.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 96.1% 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 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/mistral-small-4 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5/mistral-small-4?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill