Mistral Small 3.2 vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Which is better for the money: Mistral Small 3.2 by Mistral or Qwen3.8 Max (0902) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) scores 38.4 points higher (45.4 vs 7.0) but costs 41× as much to run the benchmark ($4935 vs $122; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max (0902) when you need intelligence above 7.0, and Mistral Small 3.2 when 7.0 is enough.
| Metric | Mistral Small 3.2 | Qwen3.8 Max (0902) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 7.0 | 45.4 | +548.6% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 6.5× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $121.78 | $4,934.79 | +3952.2% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 41× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 12.50s | 63.23s | +405.8% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 405.8% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.07 / $0.20 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) vs Mistral Small 3.2: 548.6% more intelligence, 3952.2% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 405.8% 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.
- Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
Mistral Small 3.2Qwen3.8 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/mistral-small-3-2/qwen3-8-max · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mistral-small-3-2/qwen3-8-max?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill