# Grok 4.6 vs Mistral Small 3

> Grok 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 56.9 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 52× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/grok-4-6-vs-mistral-small-3
- Last updated: 2026-10-11
- Shared benchmarks: 20

## Summary

- They share 20 benchmarks with published results for both. Grok 4.6 scores higher in 8 categories and Mistral Small 3 in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Grok 4.6 leads 67.0 to 16.3.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 99.2% for Grok 4.6 and 6.7% for Mistral Small 3.
- Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $6 for Grok 4.6.
- Grok 4.6 accepts more context: 500K tokens versus 33K.
- Mistral Small 3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Grok 4.6 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | xAI | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 56.9 | 31.2 |
| Rank | 21 | 278 |
| Context | 500K | 33K |
| Input $/M | $2 | $0.05 |
| Output $/M | $6 | $0.08 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Grok 4.6: 58.5 (#16)
- Mistral Small 3: 36.5 (#207)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1465 | 1246 |
| DeepSWE | 67.5% | — |
| FrontierCode | 48% | — |
| CursorBench | 41.4% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1617 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 25.3% | — |
| SciCode | 56.5% | — |
| WeirdML | 67.3% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 45.3% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 50.4% |
| ALE-Bench | 1,508 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Grok 4.6: 39.4 (#27)
- Mistral Small 3: —

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 65.3% | — |
| GDP.pdf | 17.2% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 9,047 | — |

## Reasoning

- Grok 4.6: 61.4 (#20)
- Mistral Small 3: 18.9 (#273)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 40% | 0% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1447 | 1233 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 156.44 | 127.07 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 67.1% | — |
| SimpleBench | 75.9% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 80% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 87.5% | — |
| CritPt | 19.7% | — |
| EBR-Bench | 30.5% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 34% | — |
| DTBench | 97.3% | — |
| LMCA | 48.5% | — |

## Math

- Grok 4.6: 67.0 (#24)
- Mistral Small 3: 16.3 (#295)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 99.2% | 6.7% |
| LMArena Math | 1423 | 1240 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 66% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 31.7% | — |
| ProofBench | 51% | — |

## Knowledge

- Grok 4.6: 63.3 (#20)
- Mistral Small 3: 25.1 (#263)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 94% | 47.3% |
| LMArena Expert | 1467 | 1202 |
| SimpleQA Verified | 49.3% | — |
| Confabulations | — | 25.2% |

## Multimodal

- Grok 4.6: 43.6 (#23)
- Mistral Small 3: —

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1263 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 33.2% | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 40% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1452 | — |

## Multilingual

- Grok 4.6: 53.0 (#74)
- Mistral Small 3: 37.3 (#236)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1420 | 1198 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1480 | 1204 |
| LMArena French | 1461 | 1203 |
| LMArena German | 1431 | 1211 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1376 | 1111 |
| LMArena Korean | 1397 | 1188 |
| LMArena Russian | 1422 | 1216 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1404 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Grok 4.6: 75.4 (#63)
- Mistral Small 3: 63.7 (#229)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1431 | 1214 |

## Long Context

- Grok 4.6: 44.5 (#66)
- Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#211)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1454 | 1246 |

## Writing & Preference

- Grok 4.6: 62.3 (#80)
- Mistral Small 3: 32.2 (#280)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1428 | 1234 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1428 | 1195 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1425 | 1217 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 707 |

## FAQ

### Is Grok 4.6 better than Mistral Small 3?

Grok 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 56.9 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 52× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Grok 4.6 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; Grok 4.6 lists at $2 and $6.

### Is Grok 4.6 or Mistral Small 3 better for coding?

Grok 4.6 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 58.5 versus 36.5 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Grok 4.6 does, with 500K tokens against 33K.

### How many benchmarks do Grok 4.6 and Mistral Small 3 share?

20 benchmarks have published results for both models. Grok 4.6 has 49 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3 has 24.