Mistral Medium 3 vs Mistral Small 3.1 24B
Mistral Small 3.1 24B costs 3.6x less per output token than Mistral Medium 3 ($0.555 vs $2.00 per million). Updated October 21, 2026; 38 benchmarks have a result for both.
Mistral Medium 3 or Mistral Small 3.1 24B: which to pick
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Mistral Medium 3 for a larger context window (131K against 128K tokens) and work measured by LMArena Vision: captioning or LMArena Vision: recognizing things, where it leads.
- Shared results
- 38
- Mistral Medium 3 only
- 19
- Mistral Small 3.1 24B only
- 0
- Like-for-like categories
- 5 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
No call
Only Mistral Medium 3 has a AA Intelligence Index result, 9.0.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Mistral Medium 3 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1079.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Mistral Medium 3
Mistral Medium 3 takes 131K tokens against 128K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Mistral Small 3.1 24B
Mistral Medium 3 $0.0014, Mistral Small 3.1 24B $0.0006 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Mistral Medium 3 not benchmarked, Mistral Small 3.1 24B not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Knowledge, 18.2 points apart on average over 4 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- LMArena Text: Polish: Mistral Medium 3 1371 against Mistral Small 3.1 24B 1242, 21.5 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Mistral Medium 3 $2.00 against Mistral Small 3.1 24B $0.555 per million output tokens, 3.6x apart.
- Context window
- Mistral Medium 3 takes 131K tokens, Mistral Small 3.1 24B 128K.
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 | Mistral Medium 3 | Bars | Mistral Small 3.1 24B | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 2 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 5 | 0 | ||
| Math | 2 | 0 | ||
| Knowledge | 4 | 0 | ||
| General | 23 | 2 | ||
| All shared boards | 36 | 2 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index20
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Mistral Small 3.1 24B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 40.0% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 3.8% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1385 | 1309 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1385 | 1301 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 35 boards here | |||
IntelligenceDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Mistral Small 3.1 24B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 9.0 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 134.0 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index1 board, none shared
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Mistral Small 3.1 24B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 24.3% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 40 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index50
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Mistral Small 3.1 24B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 57.8% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 4.1% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1364 | 1278 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1342 | 1257 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1374 | 1290 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1155 | 1119 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1165 | 1158 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Mistral Small 3.1 24B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Math Index | 30.3 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 30.3% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1353 | 1261 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1354 | 1271 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index40
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Mistral Small 3.1 24B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 76.0% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1381 | 1265 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1381 | 1267 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1384 | 1271 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1352 | 1257 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Mistral Small 3.1 24B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1079 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1024 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1018 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1034 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1084 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1069 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index232
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Mistral Small 3.1 24B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| IFBench | 39.3% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 31.3% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| DTBench | 62.3% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1370 | 1277 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1338 | 1263 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1343 | 1252 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Vision | 1157 | 1136 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: English | 1385 | 1295 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1353 | 1255 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1374 | 1253 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: German | 1377 | 1266 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1316 | 1208 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1304 | 1207 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: French | 1368 | 1273 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1364 | 1284 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1359 | 1263 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1371 | 1242 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1384 | 1270 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1360 | 1299 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1352 | 1268 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1335 | 1250 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1172 | 1157 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1161 | 1155 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1154 | 1132 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1145 | 1142 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Vision: captioning | 1094 | 1153 | Mistral Small 3.1 24B |
| LMArena Vision: recognizing things | 1141 | 1155 | Mistral Small 3.1 24B |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1146 | 1123 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| 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 | Mistral Medium 3 | Mistral Small 3.1 24B | 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
Mistral Small 3.1 24B costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Mistral Small 3.1 24B costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Mistral Small 3.1 24B 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 Medium 3 | Mistral Small 3.1 24B |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Mistral AI | Mistral AI |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | May 7, 2025 | March 17, 2025 |
| Context window | 131K | 128K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.40 | $0.351 |
| Output $/Mtok | $2.00 | $0.555 |
| 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 Mistral Medium 3 better than Mistral Small 3.1 24B for coding?
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Mistral Medium 3 for a larger context window (131K against 128K tokens) and work measured by LMArena Vision: captioning or LMArena Vision: recognizing things, where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Medium 3 or Mistral Small 3.1 24B?
Mistral Medium 3 costs $0.40 per million input tokens and $2.00 per million output tokens; Mistral Small 3.1 24B costs $0.351 and $0.555. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Mistral Medium 3 or Mistral Small 3.1 24B?
Mistral Medium 3, with 131K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks is the Mistral Medium 3 vs Mistral Small 3.1 24B comparison based on?
38 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Mistral Medium 3's coding index rests on 0 independent benchmarks and Mistral Small 3.1 24B's on 0. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.