Ministral 3 8B vs Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Ministral 3 8B by Mistral or Qwen3.6 27B (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
Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) scores 15.9 points higher (21.4 vs 5.5) but costs 42× as much to run the benchmark ($1145 vs $27.5; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 5.5, and Ministral 3 8B when 5.5 is enough.
| Metric | Ministral 3 8B | Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 5.5 | 21.4 | +289.1% Qwen3.6 27B (Reasonin… is 3.9× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $27.47 | $1,145.36 | +4069.5% Qwen3.6 27B (Reasonin… is 42× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 5.36s | 110.84s | +1967.9% Qwen3.6 27B (Reasonin… is 1967.9% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.15 / $0.15 | $0.60 / $3.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) vs Ministral 3 8B: 289.1% more intelligence, 4069.5% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 1967.9% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Ministral 3 8B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
- Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Ministral 3 8BQwen3.6 27B (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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