Noometry

Model comparison

GPT-4.1 mini vs Mistral Small 3.1

GPT-4.1 mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.5 to 31.4 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3.1 costs 1.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GPT-4.1 mini's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 28 shared benchmarks.

GPT-4.1 mini OpenAI

33.5

Rank #232 Confirmed

Mistral Small 3.1 Mistral AI

31.4

Rank #263 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 28 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-4.1 mini scores higher in 6 categories and Mistral Small 3.1 in 3 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where GPT-4.1 mini leads 34.7 to 22.6.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 44.7% for GPT-4.1 mini and 3.9% for Mistral Small 3.1.
  • Mistral Small 3.1 is cheaper at $0.35 / $0.56 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 128K.
  • Mistral Small 3.1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

GPT-4.1 miniMistral Small 3.1
ProviderOpenAIMistral AI
Noometry Index33.531.4
Released2025-04-142025-03-17
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1.05M128K
Max output33K102K
Input $ / M tokens$0.40$0.35
Output $ / M tokens$1.60$0.56
Results tracked4728

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Category by category

Coding Mistral Small 3.1 leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 30.4 (#286), Mistral Small 3.1: 37.7 (#175)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniMistral Small 3.1
LMArena Coding13671309
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)23.9%—
Aider Polyglot32.4%—
SciCode40.4%—
WeirdML37.6%—
BigCodeBench Instruct48.9%—
CadEval16%—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: 33.0 (#52), Mistral Small 3.1: —

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniMistral Small 3.1
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard50.5%—

Reasoning Mistral Small 3.1 leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 10.9 (#335), Mistral Small 3.1: 18.9 (#249)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniMistral Small 3.1
Chess Puzzles7%1%
LMArena Hard Prompts13491278
Epoch Capabilities Index135.01127.48
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: 23.1 (#264), Mistral Small 3.1: 13.7 (#295)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniMistral Small 3.1
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202544.7%3.9%
Omni-MATH49.1%24.8%
LMArena Math13431261
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)6.7%—
MATH Level 587.3%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)4.5%—

Knowledge GPT-4.1 mini leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 34.7 (#183), Mistral Small 3.1: 22.6 (#266)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniMistral Small 3.1
GPQA Diamond65.8%41.9%
MMLU-Pro78.3%61%
GPQA (HELM)61.4%39.2%
LMArena Expert13381258
SimpleQA Verified12.7%—

Multimodal GPT-4.1 mini leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 35.2 (#77), Mistral Small 3.1: 32.6 (#93)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniMistral Small 3.1
LMArena Vision11811136

Multilingual GPT-4.1 mini leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 45.9 (#161), Mistral Small 3.1: 41.4 (#204)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniMistral Small 3.1
LMArena Non-English13181255
LMArena Chinese13291254
LMArena French13571270
LMArena German13491266
LMArena Japanese12911210
LMArena Korean12981206
LMArena Russian13241263
LMArena Spanish13191283

Instruction Following GPT-4.1 mini leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 73.9 (#113), Mistral Small 3.1: 63.8 (#225)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniMistral Small 3.1
IFEval90.4%75%
LMArena Instruction Following13321264

Long Context Mistral Small 3.1 leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 31.8 (#270), Mistral Small 3.1: 39.5 (#172)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniMistral Small 3.1
LMArena Longer Query13441300
Fiction.LiveBench44.4%—

Writing & Preference GPT-4.1 mini leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 48.8 (#193), Mistral Small 3.1: 37.2 (#254)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniMistral Small 3.1
LMArena Text13411278
LMArena Creative Writing13001253
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1147761
WildBench83.8%78.8%
LMArena Multi-Turn13541270

Frequently asked questions

Is GPT-4.1 mini better than Mistral Small 3.1?

GPT-4.1 mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.5 to 31.4 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3.1 costs 1.7× 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 3.1?

Mistral Small 3.1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.35 per million input tokens and $0.56 per million output tokens; GPT-4.1 mini lists at $0.40 and $1.60.

Is GPT-4.1 mini or Mistral Small 3.1 better for coding?

Mistral Small 3.1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 37.7 versus 30.4 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

GPT-4.1 mini does, with 1.05M tokens against 128K.

How many benchmarks do GPT-4.1 mini and Mistral Small 3.1 share?

28 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-4.1 mini has 47 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3.1 has 28.

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