GPT-5.5 (Medium) vs Mistral Small 3.1
Which is better for the money: GPT-5.5 (Medium) by OpenAI 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
GPT-5.5 (Medium) scores 26.7 points higher (33.8 vs 7.1) but costs 75× as much to run the benchmark ($2095 vs $27.8; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GPT-5.5 (Medium) when you need intelligence above 7.1, and Mistral Small 3.1 when 7.1 is enough.
| Metric | GPT-5.5 (Medium) | Mistral Small 3.1 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 33.8 | 7.1 | −79.0% Mistral Small 3.1 is 79.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,095.12 | $27.82 | −98.7% Mistral Small 3.1 is 98.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.17s | 11.78s | +5.5% Mistral Small 3.1 is 5.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $30.0 | $0.08 / $0.14 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Mistral Small 3.1 vs GPT-5.5 (Medium): 79.0% less intelligence, 98.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 5.5% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- GPT-5.5 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Mistral Small 3.1 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
GPT-5.5 (Medium)Mistral Small 3.1Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/gpt-5-5-medium/mistral-small-3-1 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gpt-5-5-medium/mistral-small-3-1?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill