Noometry

Model comparison

GPT-4.1 mini vs Mistral Small 3

GPT-4.1 mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.6 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 12× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GPT-4.1 mini's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 22 shared benchmarks.

GPT-4.1 mini OpenAI

33.6

Rank #240 Confirmed

Mistral Small 3 Mistral AI

31.2

Rank #278 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 22 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-4.1 mini scores higher in 5 categories and Mistral Small 3 in 3 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where GPT-4.1 mini leads 48.6 to 32.2.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 44.7% for GPT-4.1 mini and 6.7% for Mistral Small 3.
  • Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.40 / $1.60 for GPT-4.1 mini.
  • GPT-4.1 mini accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 33K.
  • Mistral Small 3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

GPT-4.1 miniMistral Small 3
ProviderOpenAIMistral AI
Noometry Index33.631.2
Released2025-04-142025-01-30
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1.05M33K
Max output33K16K
Input $ / M tokens$0.40$0.05
Output $ / M tokens$1.60$0.08
Results tracked4724

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Category by category

Coding Mistral Small 3 leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 30.6 (#293), Mistral Small 3: 36.5 (#207)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniMistral Small 3
BigCodeBench Instruct48.9%45.3%
LMArena Coding13671246
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)23.9%—
Aider Polyglot32.4%—
SciCode40.4%—
WeirdML37.6%—
BigCodeBench Complete—50.4%
CadEval16%—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: 33.3 (#55), Mistral Small 3: —

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniMistral Small 3
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard50.5%—

Reasoning Mistral Small 3 leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 10.8 (#340), Mistral Small 3: 18.9 (#273)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniMistral Small 3
Chess Puzzles7%0%
LMArena Hard Prompts13491233
Epoch Capabilities Index135.01127.07
ARC-AGI-20%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark48.6%—
ARC-AGI-13.5%—
CritPt0%—
Mystery Game Puzzles7%—
DTBench68.8%—
LMCA21.1%—

Math GPT-4.1 mini leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 24.1 (#270), Mistral Small 3: 16.3 (#295)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniMistral Small 3
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202544.7%6.7%
LMArena Math13431240
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)6.7%—
Omni-MATH49.1%—
MATH Level 587.3%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)4.5%—

Knowledge GPT-4.1 mini leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 34.7 (#194), Mistral Small 3: 25.1 (#263)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniMistral Small 3
GPQA Diamond65.8%47.3%
LMArena Expert13381202
SimpleQA Verified12.7%—
MMLU-Pro78.3%—
Confabulations—25.2%
GPQA (HELM)61.4%—

Multimodal Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: 35.8 (#82), Mistral Small 3: —

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniMistral Small 3
LMArena Vision1181—

Multilingual GPT-4.1 mini leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 45.7 (#166), Mistral Small 3: 37.3 (#236)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniMistral Small 3
LMArena Non-English13181198
LMArena Chinese13291204
LMArena French13581203
LMArena German13511211
LMArena Japanese12901111
LMArena Korean12981188
LMArena Russian13241216
LMArena Spanish1319—

Instruction Following GPT-4.1 mini leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 73.7 (#118), Mistral Small 3: 63.7 (#229)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniMistral Small 3
LMArena Instruction Following13331214
IFEval90.4%—

Long Context Mistral Small 3 leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 31.8 (#275), Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#211)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniMistral Small 3
LMArena Longer Query13441246
Fiction.LiveBench44.4%—

Writing & Preference GPT-4.1 mini leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 48.6 (#199), Mistral Small 3: 32.2 (#280)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniMistral Small 3
LMArena Text13401234
LMArena Creative Writing13001195
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1147707
LMArena Multi-Turn13541217
WildBench83.8%—

Frequently asked questions

Is GPT-4.1 mini better than Mistral Small 3?

GPT-4.1 mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.6 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 12× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GPT-4.1 mini's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, GPT-4.1 mini or Mistral Small 3?

Mistral Small 3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; GPT-4.1 mini lists at $0.40 and $1.60.

Is GPT-4.1 mini or Mistral Small 3 better for coding?

Mistral Small 3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 36.5 versus 30.6 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

GPT-4.1 mini does, with 1.05M tokens against 33K.

How many benchmarks do GPT-4.1 mini and Mistral Small 3 share?

22 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-4.1 mini has 47 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3 has 24.

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