GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) vs Mistral Small 3.2
Which is better for the money: GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) by OpenAI or Mistral Small 3.2 by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) scores 35.1 points higher (42.1 vs 7.0) but costs 21× as much to run the benchmark ($2501 vs $122; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) when you need intelligence above 7.0, and Mistral Small 3.2 when 7.0 is enough.
| Metric | GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) | Mistral Small 3.2 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 42.1 | 7.0 | −83.4% Mistral Small 3.2 is 83.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,500.72 | $121.78 | −95.1% Mistral Small 3.2 is 95.1% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 107.91s | 9.99s | −90.7% Mistral Small 3.2 is 90.7% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $12.0 | $0.07 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Mistral Small 3.2 vs GPT-5.6 Terra (Max): 83.4% less intelligence, 95.1% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 90.7% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
- Mistral Small 3.2 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Flash scores 37.90 for $110.
GPT-5.6 Terra (Max)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-5-6-terra/mistral-small-3-2 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gpt-5-6-terra/mistral-small-3-2?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill