Mistral MediumvsMistral Small
Mistral AI vs Mistral AI — Side-by-side model comparison
Head-to-Head Comparison
| Metric | Mistral Medium | Mistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | ||
| Arena Rank | #16 | #19 |
| Context Window | 128K | 32K |
| Input Pricing | $0.40/1M tokens | $0.20/1M tokens |
| Output Pricing | $2.00/1M tokens | $0.60/1M tokens |
| Parameters | Undisclosed | 22B |
| Open Source | No | Yes |
| Best For | Enterprise tasks, European languages | Fast inference, cost-effective tasks, chat |
| Release Date | Jan 15, 2025 | Sep 18, 2024 |
Mistral Medium
Mistral Medium is Mistral AI's mid-tier model offering a balanced combination of performance and cost-efficiency. Built in Europe with strong multilingual support, it handles enterprise tasks, code generation, and structured data extraction competently. With a 128K context window and competitive pricing, it serves as a practical choice for production applications that need reliable performance without the cost of Mistral Large. The model is particularly strong in European languages, making it popular among EU-based organizations prioritizing data sovereignty.
View Mistral AI profile →Mistral Small
Mistral Small is Mistral AI's efficient model optimized for low-latency, cost-effective deployments. At 22 billion parameters with a 32K context window, it delivers strong performance for everyday tasks including summarization, classification, and conversational AI. It offers an excellent balance between capability and cost, making it suitable for high-volume production applications where fast response times matter.
View Mistral AI profile →Key Differences: Mistral Medium vs Mistral Small
Mistral Medium ranks higher in arena benchmarks (#16) indicating stronger overall performance.
Mistral Small is 3.0x cheaper on average, making it the better choice for high-volume applications.
Mistral Medium supports a larger context window (128K), allowing it to process longer documents in a single request.
Mistral Small is open-source (free to self-host and fine-tune) while Mistral Medium is proprietary (API-only access).
When to use Mistral Medium
- +You need the highest quality output based on arena rankings
- +Quality matters more than cost
- +You need to process long documents (128K context)
- +You prefer a managed API without infrastructure overhead
- +Your use case involves enterprise tasks, european languages
When to use Mistral Small
- +Budget is a concern and you need cost efficiency
- +You need to self-host or fine-tune the model
- +Your use case involves fast inference, cost-effective tasks, chat
Cost Analysis
At current pricing, Mistral Small is 3.0x more affordable than Mistral Medium. For a typical enterprise workload processing 100M tokens per month:
Mistral Medium monthly cost
$120
100M tokens/mo (50/50 in/out)
Mistral Small monthly cost
$40
100M tokens/mo (50/50 in/out)
The Verdict
Mistral Small wins our head-to-head comparison with 3 out of 5 category wins. It's the stronger choice for fast inference, cost-effective tasks, chat, though Mistral Medium holds an edge in enterprise tasks, european languages.
Last compared: March 2026 · Data sourced from public benchmarks and official pricing pages