Model comparison

Mistral Medium 3.1 vs Mistral Small 3

Mistral Medium 3.1 and Mistral Small 3 score almost the same on the Noometry Index (31.5 vs 30.9), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 1 shared benchmarks.

Mistral Medium 3.1

Mistral AI

31.5

Rank #260 Reported

Mistral Small 3

Mistral AI

30.9

Rank #268 Confirmed

Summary

They share 1 benchmark with published results for both. Mistral Medium 3.1 scores higher in 1 category and Mistral Small 3 in 1 category; 2 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Mistral Medium 3.1 leads 55.6 to 32.4.
Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.40 / $2 for Mistral Medium 3.1.
Mistral Medium 3.1 accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 33K.
Mistral Small 3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Mistral Medium 3.1 and Mistral Small 3 specifications
	Mistral Medium 3.1	Mistral Small 3
Provider	Mistral AI	Mistral AI
Noometry Index	31.5	30.9
Released	—	2025-01-30
Weights	Proprietary	Open
Context window	131K	33K
Max output	105K	16K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.40	$0.05
Output $ / M tokens	$2	$0.08
Results tracked	3	24

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Category by category

Coding Not comparable

Mistral Medium 3.1: —, Mistral Small 3: 36.0 (#203)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.1	Mistral Small 3
BigCodeBench Instruct	—	45.3%
LMArena Coding	—	1246
BigCodeBench Complete	—	50.4%

Reasoning Mistral Small 3 leads

Mistral Medium 3.1: 10.1 (#336), Mistral Small 3: 18.2 (#269)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.1	Mistral Small 3
NYT Connections (extended)	6.5%	—
Chess Puzzles	—	0%
Thematic Generalization	20.3%	—
LMArena Hard Prompts	—	1233
Epoch Capabilities Index	—	127.06

Math Not comparable

Mistral Medium 3.1: —, Mistral Small 3: 15.3 (#290)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.1	Mistral Small 3
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	6.7%
LMArena Math	—	1240

Knowledge Not comparable

Mistral Medium 3.1: —, Mistral Small 3: 25.0 (#258)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.1	Mistral Small 3
GPQA Diamond	—	47.3%
Confabulations	—	25.2%
LMArena Expert	—	1202

Multilingual Not comparable

Mistral Medium 3.1: —, Mistral Small 3: 37.5 (#231)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.1	Mistral Small 3
LMArena Non-English	—	1198
LMArena Chinese	—	1204
LMArena French	—	1202
LMArena German	—	1211
LMArena Japanese	—	1111
LMArena Korean	—	1188
LMArena Russian	—	1216

Instruction Following Not comparable

Mistral Medium 3.1: —, Mistral Small 3: 63.9 (#224)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.1	Mistral Small 3
LMArena Instruction Following	—	1214

Long Context Not comparable

Mistral Medium 3.1: —, Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#206)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.1	Mistral Small 3
LMArena Longer Query	—	1246

Writing & Preference Mistral Medium 3.1 leads

Mistral Medium 3.1: 55.6 (#140), Mistral Small 3: 32.4 (#275)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.1	Mistral Small 3
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	1476	707
LMArena Text	—	1234
LMArena Creative Writing	—	1195
LMArena Multi-Turn	—	1217

Frequently asked questions

Is Mistral Medium 3.1 better than Mistral Small 3?

Mistral Medium 3.1 and Mistral Small 3 score almost the same on the Noometry Index (31.5 vs 30.9), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

Which is cheaper, Mistral Medium 3.1 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 3.1 lists at $0.40 and $2.

Which has the bigger context window?

Mistral Medium 3.1 does, with 131K tokens against 33K.

How many benchmarks do Mistral Medium 3.1 and Mistral Small 3 share?

1 benchmark has published results for both models. Mistral Medium 3.1 has 3 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3 has 24.