Model comparison
Mistral Small vs Step 5 Preview
Step 5 Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.9 to 33.4 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small costs 5.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Step 5 Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 16 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AI
StepFunSummary
- They share 16 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Small scores higher in 0 categories and Step 5 Preview in 9 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Step 5 Preview leads 46.1 to 16.4.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is SciCode: 26.5% for Mistral Small and 58.9% for Step 5 Preview.
- Mistral Small is cheaper at $0.15 / $0.60 per million input/output tokens, against $1 / $2.70 for Step 5 Preview.
- Step 5 Preview accepts more context: 1.02M tokens versus 262K.
- Mistral Small has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Mistral Small | Step 5 Preview | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | StepFun |
| Noometry Index | 33.4 | 47.9 |
| Released | 2024-02-26 | 2026-09-16 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 262K | 1.02M |
| Max output | 256K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.15 | $1 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.60 | $2.70 |
| Results tracked | 39 | 18 |
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Category by category
Coding Step 5 Preview leads
Mistral Small: 34.0 (#247), Step 5 Preview: 51.8 (#36)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 26.5% | 58.9% |
| LMArena Coding | 1362 | 1480 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1564 |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 36.1% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | 36.2% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 46.6% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 497.62 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Mistral Small: 28.1 (#93), Step 5 Preview: —
| Benchmark | Mistral Small | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 37.1% | — |
Reasoning Step 5 Preview leads
Mistral Small: 19.8 (#250), Step 5 Preview: 40.0 (#57)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 0% | 20.9% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1335 | 1465 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 37.8% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 44.8% | — |
| DTBench | 70.9% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 53.7% | — |
| LMCA | 20.6% | — |
| LiveBench | 44% | — |
Math Step 5 Preview leads
Mistral Small: 16.4 (#293), Step 5 Preview: 46.1 (#72)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1341 | 1470 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 5.8% | — |
| ProofBench | — | 42% |
| LiveBench Math | 39.9% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 46.8% | — |
Knowledge Step 5 Preview leads
Mistral Small: 31.0 (#222), Step 5 Preview: 41.2 (#112)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1291 | 1470 |
| GPQA Diamond | 47.5% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 5.1% | — |
| MMLU | 68.7% | — |
Multimodal Step 5 Preview leads
Mistral Small: 33.5 (#96), Step 5 Preview: 41.0 (#41)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1142 | 1267 |
Multilingual Step 5 Preview leads
Mistral Small: 45.5 (#169), Step 5 Preview: 53.8 (#54)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1315 | 1432 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1340 | 1519 |
| LMArena Russian | 1324 | 1436 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1346 | 1439 |
| LMArena French | 1337 | — |
| LMArena German | 1340 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1275 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1259 | — |
Instruction Following Step 5 Preview leads
Mistral Small: 66.4 (#209), Step 5 Preview: 76.0 (#50)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1310 | 1444 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 63.7% | — |
Long Context Step 5 Preview leads
Mistral Small: 40.4 (#156), Step 5 Preview: 44.5 (#64)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1327 | 1455 |
Writing & Preference Step 5 Preview leads
Mistral Small: 52.5 (#171), Step 5 Preview: 62.8 (#71)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1338 | 1442 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1305 | 1410 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1344 | 1447 |
| LiveBench Language | 30.5% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Mistral Small better than Step 5 Preview?
Step 5 Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.9 to 33.4 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small costs 5.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Step 5 Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Small or Step 5 Preview?
Mistral Small is cheaper. It lists at $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.60 per million output tokens; Step 5 Preview lists at $1 and $2.70.
Is Mistral Small or Step 5 Preview better for coding?
Step 5 Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 51.8 versus 34.0 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Step 5 Preview does, with 1.02M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks do Mistral Small and Step 5 Preview share?
16 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small has 39 scored results on Noometry and Step 5 Preview has 18.