Model comparison
Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Ministral 3B
Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 61.9 to 26.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 3B costs 40× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 2 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AISummary
- They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher in 3 categories and Ministral 3B in 0 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads 87.9 to 26.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 95.6% for Claude Sonnet 5.5 and 25.3% for Ministral 3B.
- Ministral 3B is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.10 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $10 for Claude Sonnet 5.5.
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
- Ministral 3B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Ministral 3B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 61.9 | 26.2 |
| Released | 2026-09-28 | 2024-10-01 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1M | 131K |
| Max output | 128K | 262K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $2 | $0.10 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $10 | $0.10 |
| Results tracked | 32 | 6 |
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Category by category
Coding Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 67.3 (#6), Ministral 3B: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Ministral 3B |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierCode | 52.1% | — |
| CursorBench | 55.5% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1774 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 61.9% | — |
| SciCode | 61% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1513 | — |
| ALE-Bench | 1,819 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 45.0 (#16), Ministral 3B: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Ministral 3B |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 75.5% | — |
Reasoning Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 54.0 (#28), Ministral 3B: 18.4 (#282)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Ministral 3B |
|---|---|---|
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 165.03 | 118.1 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 80.5% | — |
| CritPt | 31.4% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1495 | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 65% | — |
| DTBench | — | 51.7% |
| LMCA | — | 5.5% |
Math Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 87.9 (#6), Ministral 3B: 26.6 (#258)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Ministral 3B |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 88.8% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 80.5% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 100% | — |
| ProofBench | 100% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1510 | — |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 14.4% |
| FrontierMath Erdős | 2.9% | — |
Knowledge Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#12), Ministral 3B: 10.4 (#302)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Ministral 3B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 95.6% | 25.3% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 46.5% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 7.3% |
| LMArena Expert | 1540 | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 51.5 (#6), Ministral 3B: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Ministral 3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1289 | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 75% | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 55.3 (#30), Ministral 3B: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Ministral 3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1452 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1522 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1451 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 78.3 (#11), Ministral 3B: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Ministral 3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1495 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 45.9 (#28), Ministral 3B: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Ministral 3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1498 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#40), Ministral 3B: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Ministral 3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1471 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1465 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1474 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 better than Ministral 3B?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 61.9 to 26.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 3B costs 40× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Ministral 3B?
Ministral 3B is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.10 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 5.5 lists at $2 and $10.
Which has the bigger context window?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 does, with 1M tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Ministral 3B share?
2 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5.5 has 32 scored results on Noometry and Ministral 3B has 6.