Model comparison

Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Mistral Small 3.2

Mistral Medium 3.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.2 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3.2 costs 23× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Mistral Medium 3.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 11, 2026. 2 shared benchmarks.

Mistral Medium 3.5

Mistral AI

40.2

Rank #152 Confirmed

Mistral Small 3.2

Mistral AI

31.2

Rank #280 Confirmed

Summary

They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Medium 3.5 scores higher in 3 categories and Mistral Small 3.2 in 1 category; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Mistral Medium 3.5 leads 58.5 to 45.0.
Mistral Small 3.2 is cheaper at $0.0938 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $7.50 for Mistral Medium 3.5.
Mistral Medium 3.5 accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 256K.

Side by side

Mistral Medium 3.5 and Mistral Small 3.2 specifications
	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small 3.2
Provider	Mistral AI	Mistral AI
Noometry Index	40.2	31.2
Released	—	2025-06-20
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	262K	256K
Max output	210K	16K
Input $ / M tokens	$1.50	$0.0938
Output $ / M tokens	$7.50	$0.25
Results tracked	22	6

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Category by category

Coding Not comparable

Mistral Medium 3.5: 36.0 (#213), Mistral Small 3.2: —

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small 3.2
LMArena WebDev	1264	—
LMArena Coding	1461	—

Reasoning Too close to call

Mistral Medium 3.5: 17.3 (#295), Mistral Small 3.2: 18.1 (#287)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small 3.2
Kagi LLM Benchmark	41.4%	40.4%
Epoch Capabilities Index	141.35	131.74
NYT Connections (extended)	12.9%	—
Chess Puzzles	—	1%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1436	—

Math Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

Mistral Medium 3.5: 39.1 (#113), Mistral Small 3.2: 26.3 (#260)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small 3.2
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	30.3%
LMArena Math	1431	—

Knowledge Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

Mistral Medium 3.5: 40.0 (#126), Mistral Small 3.2: 26.7 (#256)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small 3.2
GPQA Diamond	—	49.1%
LMArena Expert	1432	—

Multimodal Not comparable

Mistral Medium 3.5: 38.3 (#65), Mistral Small 3.2: —

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small 3.2
LMArena Vision	1223	—

Multilingual Not comparable

Mistral Medium 3.5: 51.9 (#100), Mistral Small 3.2: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small 3.2
LMArena Non-English	1404	—
LMArena Chinese	1442	—
LMArena French	1448	—
LMArena German	1451	—
LMArena Korean	1385	—
LMArena Russian	1395	—
LMArena Spanish	1409	—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Mistral Medium 3.5: 74.6 (#90), Mistral Small 3.2: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small 3.2
LMArena Instruction Following	1415	—

Long Context Not comparable

Mistral Medium 3.5: 43.2 (#103), Mistral Small 3.2: —

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small 3.2
LMArena Longer Query	1415	—

Writing & Preference Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

Mistral Medium 3.5: 58.5 (#117), Mistral Small 3.2: 45.0 (#224)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small 3.2
LMArena Text	1421	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1374	—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	—	1255
EQ-Bench 4	993	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	1423	—

Frequently asked questions

Is Mistral Medium 3.5 better than Mistral Small 3.2?

Which is cheaper, Mistral Medium 3.5 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; Mistral Medium 3.5 lists at $1.50 and $7.50.

Which has the bigger context window?

Mistral Medium 3.5 does, with 262K tokens against 256K.

How many benchmarks do Mistral Medium 3.5 and Mistral Small 3.2 share?

2 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Medium 3.5 has 22 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3.2 has 6.