Ministral 3 3B vs Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Ministral 3 3B by Mistral or Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) by Alibaba? 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
Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) scores 6.4 points higher (11.2 vs 4.8) but costs 27× as much to run the benchmark ($329 vs $12.2; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 4.8, and Ministral 3 3B when 4.8 is enough.
| Metric | Ministral 3 3B | Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 4.8 | 11.2 | +133.3% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 2.3× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $12.23 | $328.86 | +2589.0% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 27× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 3.13s | 43.82s | +1300.0% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 1300.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.10 / $0.10 | $0.14 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) vs Ministral 3 3B: 133.3% more intelligence, 2589.0% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 1300.0% 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.
- Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Ministral 3 3BQwen3.5 9B (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/qwen3-5-9b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/ministral-3-3b/qwen3-5-9b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill