Mistral Small 3.1 vs Step 5 Preview
Which is better for the money: Mistral Small 3.1 by Mistral or Step 5 Preview by StepFun? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Step 5 Preview scores 36.6 points higher (43.7 vs 7.1) but costs 43× as much to run the benchmark ($1190 vs $27.8; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Step 5 Preview when you need intelligence above 7.1, and Mistral Small 3.1 when 7.1 is enough.
| Metric | Mistral Small 3.1 | Step 5 Preview | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 7.1 | 43.7 | +515.5% Step 5 Preview is 6.2× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $27.82 | $1,190.26 | +4178.4% Step 5 Preview is 43× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.99s | 12.06s | +0.6% Step 5 Preview is 0.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.08 / $0.14 | $1.00 / $2.70 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Step 5 Preview vs Mistral Small 3.1: 515.5% more intelligence, 4178.4% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 0.6% 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.
- Step 5 Preview is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Mistral Small 3.1Step 5 PreviewToday'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/mistral-small-3-1/step-5 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mistral-small-3-1/step-5?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill