Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhigh) vs Mistral Small 3.1
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhigh) by Anthropic or Mistral Small 3.1 by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhigh) scores 27.3 points higher (34.4 vs 7.1) but costs 117× as much to run the benchmark ($3255 vs $27.8; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhigh) when you need intelligence above 7.1, and Mistral Small 3.1 when 7.1 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhigh) | Mistral Small 3.1 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 34.4 | 7.1 | −79.4% Mistral Small 3.1 is 79.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $3,255.40 | $27.82 | −99.1% Mistral Small 3.1 is 99.1% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 26.92s | 11.75s | −56.4% Mistral Small 3.1 is 56.4% faster |
| 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 (Xhigh): 79.4% less intelligence, 99.1% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 56.4% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5 (Xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
- 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 (Xhigh)Mistral Small 3.1Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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