Mistral Small 3.2 vs Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Mistral Small 3.2 by Mistral or Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) scores 14.4 points higher (21.4 vs 7.0) but costs 9.4× as much to run the benchmark ($1145 vs $122; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 7.0, and Mistral Small 3.2 when 7.0 is enough.
| Metric | Mistral Small 3.2 | Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 7.0 | 21.4 | +205.7% Qwen3.6 27B (Reasonin… is 3.1× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $121.78 | $1,145.36 | +840.5% Qwen3.6 27B (Reasonin… is 9.4× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 12.50s | 112.14s | +797.1% Qwen3.6 27B (Reasonin… is 797.1% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.07 / $0.20 | $0.60 / $3.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) vs Mistral Small 3.2: 205.7% more intelligence, 840.5% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 797.1% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Mistral Small 3.2 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Flash scores 37.90 for $110.
- Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Mistral Small 3.2Qwen3.6 27B (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/mistral-small-3-2/qwen3-6-27b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mistral-small-3-2/qwen3-6-27b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill