Grok 4.6 (Low) vs Mistral Small 3.1
Which is better for the money: Grok 4.6 (Low) by SpaceXAI 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
Grok 4.6 (Low) scores 28.0 points higher (35.1 vs 7.1) but costs 22× as much to run the benchmark ($614 vs $27.8; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Grok 4.6 (Low) when you need intelligence above 7.1, and Mistral Small 3.1 when 7.1 is enough.
| Metric | Grok 4.6 (Low) | Mistral Small 3.1 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 35.1 | 7.1 | −79.8% Mistral Small 3.1 is 79.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $613.92 | $27.82 | −95.5% Mistral Small 3.1 is 95.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 14.47s | 11.75s | −18.8% Mistral Small 3.1 is 18.8% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $6.00 | $0.08 / $0.14 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Mistral Small 3.1 vs Grok 4.6 (Low): 79.8% less intelligence, 95.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 18.8% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Grok 4.6 (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
- Mistral Small 3.1 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Grok 4.6 (Low)Mistral Small 3.1Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/grok-4-6-low/mistral-small-3-1 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/grok-4-6-low/mistral-small-3-1?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill