# Inkling vs Mistral Small 3

> Inkling is the stronger model overall, scoring 44.1 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 45× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Inkling's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/inkling-vs-mistral-small-3
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 21

## Summary

- They share 21 benchmarks with published results for both. Inkling scores higher in 7 categories and Mistral Small 3 in 1 category; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Inkling leads 65.5 to 32.4.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 88.9% for Inkling and 6.7% for Mistral Small 3.
- Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $1.87 / $4.68 for Inkling.
- Inkling accepts more context: 66K tokens versus 33K.

## Snapshot

| | Inkling | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Thinking Machines Lab | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 44.1 | 30.9 |
| Rank | 75 | 268 |
| Context | 66K | 33K |
| Input $/M | $1.87 | $0.05 |
| Output $/M | $4.68 | $0.08 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Inkling: 34.1 (#229)
- Mistral Small 3: 36.0 (#203)

| Benchmark | Inkling | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1463 | 1246 |
| FrontierCode | 14% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1412 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 4.1% | — |
| SciCode | 47% | — |
| WeirdML | 32.3% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 45.3% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 50.4% |
| ALE-Bench | 946 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Inkling: 29.5 (#76)
- Mistral Small 3: —

| Benchmark | Inkling | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 33.8% | — |
| τ²-bench Banking | 25% | — |

## Reasoning

- Inkling: 40.6 (#48)
- Mistral Small 3: 18.2 (#269)

| Benchmark | Inkling | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 21% | 0% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1452 | 1233 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 148.6 | 127.06 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 36.5% | — |
| SimpleBench | 50% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 79.5% | — |
| CritPt | 5.4% | — |
| DTBench | 87.5% | — |
| LMCA | 37.6% | — |

## Math

- Inkling: 31.2 (#198)
- Mistral Small 3: 15.3 (#290)

| Benchmark | Inkling | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 88.9% | 6.7% |
| LMArena Math | 1482 | 1240 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 33.3% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 4.9% | — |
| ProofBench | 0% | — |

## Knowledge

- Inkling: 55.2 (#44)
- Mistral Small 3: 25.0 (#258)

| Benchmark | Inkling | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 88.3% | 47.3% |
| LMArena Expert | 1468 | 1202 |
| SimpleQA Verified | 40.3% | — |
| Confabulations | — | 25.2% |

## Multilingual

- Inkling: 54.2 (#49)
- Mistral Small 3: 37.5 (#231)

| Benchmark | Inkling | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1434 | 1198 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1495 | 1204 |
| LMArena French | 1453 | 1202 |
| LMArena German | 1456 | 1211 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1428 | 1111 |
| LMArena Korean | 1401 | 1188 |
| LMArena Russian | 1430 | 1216 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1442 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Inkling: 75.3 (#65)
- Mistral Small 3: 63.9 (#224)

| Benchmark | Inkling | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1427 | 1214 |

## Long Context

- Inkling: 43.9 (#79)
- Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#206)

| Benchmark | Inkling | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1436 | 1246 |

## Writing & Preference

- Inkling: 65.5 (#48)
- Mistral Small 3: 32.4 (#275)

| Benchmark | Inkling | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1443 | 1234 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1390 | 1195 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1611 | 707 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1436 | 1217 |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1226 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Inkling better than Mistral Small 3?

Inkling is the stronger model overall, scoring 44.1 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 45× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Inkling's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Inkling 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; Inkling lists at $1.87 and $4.68.

### Is Inkling or Mistral Small 3 better for coding?

Mistral Small 3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 36.0 versus 34.1 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Inkling does, with 66K tokens against 33K.

### How many benchmarks do Inkling and Mistral Small 3 share?

21 benchmarks have published results for both models. Inkling has 41 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3 has 24.