Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) vs Mistral Medium 3.5
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) by Anthropic or Mistral Medium 3.5 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 (Max) scores 24.0 points higher (38.2 vs 14.2) but costs 5.5× as much to run the benchmark ($6998 vs $1264; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) when you need intelligence above 14.2, and Mistral Medium 3.5 when 14.2 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 38.2 | 14.2 | −62.8% Mistral Medium 3.5 is 62.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,998.25 | $1,263.80 | −81.9% Mistral Medium 3.5 is 81.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 182.35s | 17.66s | −90.3% Mistral Medium 3.5 is 90.3% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $1.50 / $7.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Max): 62.8% less intelligence, 81.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 90.3% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Mistral Medium 3.5 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Max)Mistral Medium 3.5Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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