Ministral 3 3B vs Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Ministral 3 3B by Mistral or Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-27.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) scores 7.9 points higher (12.7 vs 4.8) but costs 19× as much to run the benchmark ($234 vs $12.2; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 4.8, and Ministral 3 3B when 4.8 is enough.
| Metric | Ministral 3 3B | Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 4.8 | 12.7 | +164.6% Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 … is 2.6× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $12.23 | $233.56 | +1809.7% Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 … is 19× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 3.32s | 21.63s | +551.5% Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 … is 551.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.10 / $0.10 | $0.23 / $2.30 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) vs Ministral 3 3B: 164.6% more intelligence, 1809.7% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 551.5% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Ministral 3 3B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
- Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Ministral 3 3BQwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning)Today'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/ministral-3-3b/qwen3-235b-a22b-instruct-2507-reasoning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/ministral-3-3b/qwen3-235b-a22b-instruct-2507-reasoning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill