GPT-5.5 (Medium) vs Mistral Small 3.2
Which is better for the money: GPT-5.5 (Medium) by OpenAI or Mistral Small 3.2 by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
GPT-5.5 (Medium) scores 26.8 points higher (33.8 vs 7.0) but costs 17× as much to run the benchmark ($2095 vs $122; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GPT-5.5 (Medium) when you need intelligence above 7.0, and Mistral Small 3.2 when 7.0 is enough.
| Metric | GPT-5.5 (Medium) | Mistral Small 3.2 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 33.8 | 7.0 | −79.3% Mistral Small 3.2 is 79.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,095.12 | $121.78 | −94.2% Mistral Small 3.2 is 94.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 9.73s | 12.50s | +28.5% Mistral Small 3.2 is 28.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $30.0 | $0.07 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Mistral Small 3.2 vs GPT-5.5 (Medium): 79.3% less intelligence, 94.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 28.5% 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 3.2 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Flash scores 37.90 for $110.
GPT-5.5 (Medium)Mistral Small 3.2Today'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-3-2 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gpt-5-5-medium/mistral-small-3-2?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill