# Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Mistral Small 3

> Mistral Medium 3.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.2 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 52× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Mistral Medium 3.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/mistral-medium-3-5-vs-mistral-small-3
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 16

## Summary

- They share 16 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Medium 3.5 scores higher in 6 categories and Mistral Small 3 in 2 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Mistral Medium 3.5 leads 58.5 to 32.2.
- Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 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 33K.

## Snapshot

| | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 40.2 | 31.2 |
| Rank | 152 | 278 |
| Context | 262K | 33K |
| Input $/M | $1.50 | $0.05 |
| Output $/M | $7.50 | $0.08 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Mistral Medium 3.5: 36.0 (#213)
- Mistral Small 3: 36.5 (#207)

| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1461 | 1246 |
| LMArena WebDev | 1264 | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 45.3% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 50.4% |

## Reasoning

- Mistral Medium 3.5: 17.3 (#295)
- Mistral Small 3: 18.9 (#273)

| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1436 | 1233 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 141.35 | 127.07 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 41.4% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 12.9% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 0% |

## Math

- Mistral Medium 3.5: 39.1 (#113)
- Mistral Small 3: 16.3 (#295)

| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1431 | 1240 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 6.7% |

## Knowledge

- Mistral Medium 3.5: 40.0 (#126)
- Mistral Small 3: 25.1 (#263)

| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1432 | 1202 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 47.3% |
| Confabulations | — | 25.2% |

## Multimodal

- Mistral Medium 3.5: 38.3 (#65)
- Mistral Small 3: —

| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1223 | — |

## Multilingual

- Mistral Medium 3.5: 51.9 (#100)
- Mistral Small 3: 37.3 (#236)

| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1404 | 1198 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1442 | 1204 |
| LMArena French | 1448 | 1203 |
| LMArena German | 1451 | 1211 |
| LMArena Korean | 1385 | 1188 |
| LMArena Russian | 1395 | 1216 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1111 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1409 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Mistral Medium 3.5: 74.6 (#90)
- Mistral Small 3: 63.7 (#229)

| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1415 | 1214 |

## Long Context

- Mistral Medium 3.5: 43.2 (#103)
- Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#211)

| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1415 | 1246 |

## Writing & Preference

- Mistral Medium 3.5: 58.5 (#117)
- Mistral Small 3: 32.2 (#280)

| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1421 | 1234 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1374 | 1195 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1423 | 1217 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 707 |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 993 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Mistral Medium 3.5 better than Mistral Small 3?

Mistral Medium 3.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.2 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 52× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Mistral Medium 3.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

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

### Is Mistral Medium 3.5 or Mistral Small 3 better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (36.0 vs 36.5); test both on your own repository before choosing.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Mistral Medium 3.5 does, with 262K tokens against 33K.

### How many benchmarks do Mistral Medium 3.5 and Mistral Small 3 share?

16 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Medium 3.5 has 22 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3 has 24.