Model comparison
Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Mistral Small 3.2
Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.5 to 30.8 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3.2 costs 30× 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 Mistral Small 3.2 in 0 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads 88.7 to 24.9.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 100% for Claude Sonnet 5.5 and 30.3% for Mistral Small 3.2.
- Mistral Small 3.2 is cheaper at $0.0938 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $10 for Claude Sonnet 5.5.
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 256K.
- Mistral Small 3.2 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Mistral Small 3.2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 60.5 | 30.8 |
| Released | 2026-09-28 | 2025-06-20 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1M | 256K |
| Max output | 128K | 16K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $2 | $0.0938 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $10 | $0.25 |
| Results tracked | 16 | 6 |
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Category by category
Coding Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 65.5 (#6), Mistral Small 3.2: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Mistral Small 3.2 |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierCode | 52.1% | — |
| CursorBench | 55.5% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1699 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 61.9% | — |
| SciCode | 61% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 1,819 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 44.9 (#14), Mistral Small 3.2: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Mistral Small 3.2 |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 75.5% | — |
Reasoning Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 52.4 (#29), Mistral Small 3.2: 17.5 (#282)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Mistral Small 3.2 |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 40.4% |
| CritPt | 31.4% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 1% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 65% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 131.73 |
Math Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 88.7 (#4), Mistral Small 3.2: 24.9 (#251)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Mistral Small 3.2 |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 100% | 30.3% |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 88.8% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 80.5% | — |
| ProofBench | 100% | — |
Knowledge Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#11), Mistral Small 3.2: 26.8 (#249)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Mistral Small 3.2 |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 95.6% | 49.1% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 46.5% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 53.2 (#5), Mistral Small 3.2: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Mistral Small 3.2 |
|---|---|---|
| Furniture Assembly | 75% | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: —, Mistral Small 3.2: 45.1 (#219)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Mistral Small 3.2 |
|---|---|---|
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 1255 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 better than Mistral Small 3.2?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.5 to 30.8 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3.2 costs 30× 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 Mistral Small 3.2?
Mistral Small 3.2 is cheaper. It lists at $0.0938 per million input tokens and $0.25 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 256K.
How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Mistral Small 3.2 share?
2 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5.5 has 16 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3.2 has 6.