Ministral 3 3B vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Which is better for the money: Ministral 3 3B by Mistral or Qwen3.8 Max (0902) 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
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) scores 40.6 points higher (45.4 vs 4.8) but costs 403× as much to run the benchmark ($4935 vs $12.2; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max (0902) when you need intelligence above 4.8, and Ministral 3 3B when 4.8 is enough.
| Metric | Ministral 3 3B | Qwen3.8 Max (0902) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 4.8 | 45.4 | +845.8% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 9.5× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $12.23 | $4,934.79 | +40249.9% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 403× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 3.07s | 62.92s | +1949.5% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 1949.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.10 / $0.10 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) vs Ministral 3 3B: 845.8% more intelligence, 40249.9% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 1949.5% 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.
- Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
Ministral 3 3BQwen3.8 Max (0902)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/qwen3-8-max · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/ministral-3-3b/qwen3-8-max?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill