Mistral Small 3.1 vs Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Mistral Small 3.1 by Mistral or Qwen3.5 122B A10B (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 122B A10B (Reasoning) scores 8.5 points higher (15.6 vs 7.1) but costs 24× as much to run the benchmark ($661 vs $27.8; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 7.1, and Mistral Small 3.1 when 7.1 is enough.
| Metric | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 7.1 | 15.6 | +119.7% Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Re… is 2.2× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $27.82 | $661.29 | +2277.0% Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Re… is 24× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 10.82s | 21.37s | +97.5% Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Re… is 97.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.08 / $0.14 | $0.40 / $3.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Reasoning) vs Mistral Small 3.1: 119.7% more intelligence, 2277.0% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 97.5% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Mistral Small 3.1 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
- Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
Mistral Small 3.1Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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