Ministral 3 8B 2512 vs Mistral Medium 3
Mistral Medium 3 leads Ministral 3 8B 2512 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 9.0 to 5.5, and Ministral 3 8B 2512 costs 13.3x less per output token ($0.15 vs $2.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 5 benchmarks have a result for both.
Ministral 3 8B 2512 or Mistral Medium 3: which to pick
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Ministral 3 8B 2512 for output tokens 13.3x cheaper ($0.15 vs $2.00 per million) and a larger context window (262K against 131K tokens).
- Shared results
- 5
- Ministral 3 8B 2512 only
- 2
- Mistral Medium 3 only
- 52
- Like-for-like categories
- 2 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
No call
Neither has a coding score yet.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Mistral Medium 3
Mistral Medium 3 leads, 9.0 against 5.5.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Ministral 3 8B 2512 has a AA Agentic Index result, 0.6.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Mistral Medium 3
Mistral Medium 3 leads, 1079 against 1065.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Ministral 3 8B 2512
Ministral 3 8B 2512 takes 262K tokens against 131K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Ministral 3 8B 2512
Ministral 3 8B 2512 $0.0002, Mistral Medium 3 $0.0014 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Ministral 3 8B 2512 not benchmarked, Mistral Medium 3 not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Intelligence, 3.5 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- Design Arena: 3D: Ministral 3 8B 2512 1031 against Mistral Medium 3 1083, 6.5 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Ministral 3 8B 2512 $0.15 against Mistral Medium 3 $2.00 per million output tokens, 13.3x apart.
- Context window
- Ministral 3 8B 2512 takes 262K tokens, Mistral Medium 3 131K.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Ministral 3 8B 2512 | Bars | Mistral Medium 3 | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence | 0 | 1 | ||
| Web design | 0 | 4 | ||
| All shared boards | 0 | 5 |
CodingDirectional onlySix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index5 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Ministral 3 8B 2512 | Mistral Medium 3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Coding Index | 9.7 | Not measured | Only Ministral 3 8B 2512 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 40.0% | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 3.8% | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | Not measured | 1385 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | Not measured | 1385 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 34 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Ministral 3 8B 2512 | Mistral Medium 3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 5.5 | 9.0 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | Not measured | 134.0 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Ministral 3 8B 2512 | Mistral Medium 3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 0.6 | Not measured | Only Ministral 3 8B 2512 measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | Not measured | 24.3% | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 39 boards here | |||
ReasoningDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index7 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Ministral 3 8B 2512 | Mistral Medium 3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 57.8% | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 4.1% | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | Not measured | 1364 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | Not measured | 1342 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | Not measured | 1374 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | Not measured | 1155 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | Not measured | 1165 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index4 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Ministral 3 8B 2512 | Mistral Medium 3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Math Index | Not measured | 30.3 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 30.3% | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | Not measured | 1353 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | Not measured | 1354 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index5 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Ministral 3 8B 2512 | Mistral Medium 3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 76.0% | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | Not measured | 1381 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | Not measured | 1381 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | Not measured | 1384 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | Not measured | 1352 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index04
| Benchmark | Ministral 3 8B 2512 | Mistral Medium 3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1065 | 1079 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| Design Arena: UI components | Not measured | 1022 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 990 | 1017 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| Design Arena: data viz | Not measured | 1034 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1031 | 1083 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1053 | 1068 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
GeneralDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index28 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Ministral 3 8B 2512 | Mistral Medium 3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| IFBench | Not measured | 39.3% | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | Not measured | 31.3% | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| DTBench | Not measured | 62.3% | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text | Not measured | 1370 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | Not measured | 1338 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | Not measured | 1343 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Vision | Not measured | 1157 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | Not measured | 1385 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | Not measured | 1353 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | Not measured | 1374 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: German | Not measured | 1377 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | Not measured | 1316 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | Not measured | 1304 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | Not measured | 1368 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | Not measured | 1364 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | Not measured | 1359 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | Not measured | 1371 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | Not measured | 1384 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | Not measured | 1360 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | Not measured | 1352 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | Not measured | 1335 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | Not measured | 1172 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | Not measured | 1161 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | Not measured | 1154 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | Not measured | 1145 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Vision: captioning | Not measured | 1094 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Vision: recognizing things | Not measured | 1141 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | Not measured | 1146 | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 18 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Ministral 3 8B 2512 | Mistral Medium 3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Ministral 3 8B 2512 costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Ministral 3 8B 2512 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Ministral 3 8B 2512 costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Mistral Ministral 3 8B 2512 | Mistral Medium 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Mistral AI | Mistral AI |
| Weights | Open weights | No public weights listed |
| Released | December 2, 2025 | May 7, 2025 |
| Context window | 262K | 131K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.15 | $0.40 |
| Output $/Mtok | $0.15 | $2.00 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 0 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Ministral 3 8B 2512 better than Mistral Medium 3 for coding?
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Ministral 3 8B 2512 for output tokens 13.3x cheaper ($0.15 vs $2.00 per million) and a larger context window (262K against 131K tokens).
Which is cheaper, Ministral 3 8B 2512 or Mistral Medium 3?
Ministral 3 8B 2512 costs $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Mistral Medium 3 costs $0.40 and $2.00. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Ministral 3 8B 2512 or Mistral Medium 3?
Ministral 3 8B 2512, with 262K tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks is the Ministral 3 8B 2512 vs Mistral Medium 3 comparison based on?
5 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Ministral 3 8B 2512's coding index rests on 0 independent benchmarks and Mistral Medium 3's on 0. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.