# Magistral Small vs Ministral 3B

> Magistral Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 30.2 to 26.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 3B costs 7.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Magistral Small's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/magistral-small-vs-ministral-3b
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 3

## Summary

- They share 3 benchmarks with published results for both. Magistral Small scores higher in 1 category and Ministral 3B in 2 categories; 2 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Magistral Small leads 30.9 to 10.4.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 56.1% for Magistral Small and 25.3% for Ministral 3B.
- Ministral 3B is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.10 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $1.50 for Magistral Small.
- Ministral 3B accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 128K.

## Snapshot

| | Magistral Small | Ministral 3B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 30.2 | 26.2 |
| Rank | 296 | 338 |
| Context | 128K | 131K |
| Input $/M | $0.50 | $0.10 |
| Output $/M | $1.50 | $0.10 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Magistral Small: 38.4 (#176)
- Ministral 3B: —

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Ministral 3B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 35.2% | — |

## Reasoning

- Magistral Small: 6.8 (#350)
- Ministral 3B: 18.4 (#282)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Ministral 3B |
|---|---|---|
| DTBench | 61.3% | 51.7% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 133.19 | 118.1 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 6.3% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 5% | — |
| CritPt | 0.3% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 3% | — |
| LMCA | — | 5.5% |

## Math

- Magistral Small: 26.2 (#261)
- Ministral 3B: 26.6 (#258)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Ministral 3B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 30% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 14.4% |

## Knowledge

- Magistral Small: 30.9 (#223)
- Ministral 3B: 10.4 (#302)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Ministral 3B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 56.1% | 25.3% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 7.3% |

## FAQ

### Is Magistral Small better than Ministral 3B?

Magistral Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 30.2 to 26.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 3B costs 7.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Magistral Small's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Magistral Small or Ministral 3B?

Ministral 3B is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.10 per million output tokens; Magistral Small lists at $0.50 and $1.50.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Ministral 3B does, with 131K tokens against 128K.

### How many benchmarks do Magistral Small and Ministral 3B share?

3 benchmarks have published results for both models. Magistral Small has 10 scored results on Noometry and Ministral 3B has 6.