Mistral Small 4 vs Claude Opus 5.5
Benchmarks, API Token Pricing, Context Window & Speed Comparison
Related topics (4)
Compare Mistral Small 4 by Mistral AI against Claude Opus 5.5 by Anthropic across real-world coding, reasoning, token economics, and latency.
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Mistral Small 4
Fast ProductionCompact 2026 production engine combining 256K context, lightweight hybrid reasoning, native vision, and ultra-fast throughput.
$0.10 / 1M
$0.30 / 1M
256K tokens
44.5%
Claude Opus 5.5
Frontier Intelligence TitanAnthropic's most intelligent model for complex reasoning, research, and strategic analysis.
$4.00 / 1M
$20.00 / 1M
1M tokens
84.6%
Key Differences at a Glance
- Mistral Small 4 is 52.9x cheaper for API usage (input + output tokens combined).
- Claude Opus 5.5 has a larger context window (1M vs 256K tokens).
- Mistral Small 4 is faster at 120 tok/s vs 78 tok/s.
- Claude Opus 5.5 leads on SWE-bench coding (84.6% vs 44.5%).
| Feature | Mistral Small 4 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
|---|---|---|
Intelligence Index Composite reasoning & knowledge score (0-100) | 48 | 94 |
Provider | Mistral AI | Anthropic |
Input Price Cost per million input tokens | $0.10 / 1M | $4.00 / 1M |
Output Price Cost per million output tokens | $0.30 / 1M | $20.00 / 1M |
Blended Price Weighted 7:2:1 cache:input:output per 1M | $0.07 / 1M | $3.08 / 1M |
Context Window Maximum input + output tokens | 256K tokens~384 A4 pages of text | 1M tokens~1,500 A4 pages of text |
Max Output Tokens Per single request | 16K | 128K |
Throughput Speed Tokens generated per second | 120 tok/s | 78 tok/s |
SWE-bench Verified Real-world software engineering | 44.5% | 84.6% |
GPQA Diamond Graduate-level reasoning | 56% | 82.3% |
Cached Input Price Prompt caching discount per 1M tokens | $0.03 / 1M | $0.40 / 1M |
Who Wins Where?
At-a-glance decision frameworkEmpirical Head-to-Head Benchmark Scores
Official evaluation metrics verified by independent third-party research labs.
Industry benchmark evaluating real-world GitHub issue resolution and multi-file debugging.
Challenging questions created by domain experts to test complex PhD-level reasoning.
Hardened reasoning and academic knowledge benchmark with reduced lucky-guess probability.
Crowdsourced human preference evaluation based on blind, head-to-head model battles.
Extremely difficult, closed-ended questions spanning the frontier of human expert knowledge.
Autonomous multi-step tasks executed inside a real command-line terminal environment.
Research-grade coding problems drawn from real scientific and numerical workloads.
Contamination-free competitive programming problems collected continuously over time.
American Invitational Mathematics Examination — multi-step Olympiad-level reasoning.
Accuracy when reasoning over very large inputs that fill the model context window.
Tokens emitted per second during active generation streaming.
Latency & Response Time
Time to first token (TTFT) and estimated end-to-end response time for a typical 500-token response.
Real-Time Interactive Token Cost Simulator
Adjust sliders to calculate projected monthly cloud API spending with prompt caching discounts.
Mistral Small 4 · Strengths & Key Advantages
- Colossal 256K context window in a compact 24B open framework
- Blazing 120 tokens/sec speed with 340ms time-to-first-token
- Integrated hybrid reasoning effort and native visual understanding
Considerations & Trade-offs
- Outperformed by trillion-parameter flagship titans on research-level physics
- Visual resolution limited to standard document tiles
Claude Opus 5.5 · Strengths & Key Advantages
- Unmatched autonomous multi-step agentic coding and refactoring
- Flawless multi-document reasoning over 1M token context with no long-prompt surcharge
- Highest composite Intelligence Index score measured (94/100), leading SWE-bench Verified at 84.6%
- Precise tool execution with robust error-recovery loops
Considerations & Trade-offs
- Premium output pricing ($20.00/M) plus heavy reasoning-token usage (~68K output tokens per complex task) keeps long agentic runs expensive
- Long thinking times at maximum effort can push a single hard agentic task toward ~$3.85+
Token Use & Task Economics
Estimated cost and token consumption to complete one representative agentic task.
| Metric | Mistral Small 4 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
|---|---|---|
Cost per Task Estimated USD to finish one task | $0.12 | $3.85 |
Output Tokens / Task Tokens generated per task | 28K | 68K |
Reasoning Tokens / Task Thinking tokens burned per task | 12K | 42K |
Technical Specifications
Architecture, release timeline, capabilities, and modalities.
| Feature | Mistral Small 4 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Official API Model ID (SDK) | mistral-small-4-latest | claude-opus-5-5-20260901 |
| API Protocol | OpenAI-Compatible REST / vLLM / SGLang / HuggingFace TGI | Anthropic Messages API + AWS Bedrock + Vertex AI |
| Release Date | 2026-03 | 2026-09 |
| Knowledge Cutoff | January 2026 | June 2026 |
| Architecture | Next-Gen Compact Multimodal Transformer | Extended Autonomous Hybrid Reasoning Transformer |
| Parameters | 24B | Confidential |
| Enterprise Rate Limits (RPM / TPM) | Unlimited (Hardware-bound on self-hosted GPU) / 10,000 RPM Cloud · Unlimited local throughput / 10M+ TPM Managed Cloud | 4,000 – 10,000 RPM (Tier 4 + Priority Tier) · 4,000,000 – 10,000,000 TPM |
| Long-Context Tier (>128K/200K) | Flat rate ($0.1/1M in) across full 256K window | Standard rate up to 200K tokens; 2x input/output tier above 200K tokens |
| Prompt Cache Policy & TTL | Cached input at $0.03/1M tokens | $0.4/1M cached read (90% off); 5-min default & 1-hour extended TTL |
| Computer Use / GUI Agent | API / CLI Tool-Use & DOM Agent ready (no raw pixel desktop click loop) | Supported (Screen coordinate grounding, browser & desktop GUI action loops) |
| MCP & Parallel Tool Calling | Native MCP Client/Server ready · Parallel function calling · 100% Strict JSON Schema | Native MCP Client/Server ready · Parallel function calling · 100% Strict JSON Schema |
| Web Search Grounding & Sandbox | Supported via external Tavily/Exa Search & E2B/Docker Sandbox tools | Native Web Search Citations + Code Execution Tool + MCP Connectors |
| Official Fine-Tuning Support | Full Weights SFT, LoRA, QLoRA, DPO & GRPO RL (Unsloth / Axolotl / Llama-Factory) | Custom Model Tuning via Amazon Bedrock & Prompt Distillation |
| Multimodal Token Billing | Text BPE (~4 chars/token) · Vision (~258–765 tokens per image tile) | Text BPE (~4 chars/token) · Vision (~258–765 tokens per image tile) |
| Quantization & Min GPU VRAM | BF16 / FP16, FP8 Dynamic, INT4 AWQ / GPTQ, GGUF (Q4_K_M / Q8_0) · 15 GB VRAM (4-bit Quantized) · 52 GB VRAM (Native BF16) | Cloud-Hosted Proprietary (FP8 / BF16 Tensor Core Cluster) · Zero Local VRAM Required (100% Serverless Cloud API) |
| Safety & Frontier Classification | Open-Weights System Card + Customizable Guardrail Layer (Llama Guard / ShieldGemma) | Anthropic RSP ASL-2 / ASL-3 Constitutional Safety Evaluated |
| Enterprise Compliance (ZDR/HIPAA/SOC2) | 100% Air-Gapped On-Premises / Private VPC · Full HIPAA, GDPR & SOC2 Control | SOC2 Type II · GDPR · Zero Data Retention (ZDR) & HIPAA BAA Available on Enterprise Tier |
| Input Modalities | text, vision | text, vision |
| Output Modalities | text | text |
Mistral Small 4 vs Claude Opus 5.5: Quick Answers
Which is more intelligent, Mistral Small 4 or Claude Opus 5.5?
Claude Opus 5.5 is more intelligent. It scores 94 compared with 48 on the composite Intelligence Index.
Which model is faster?
Mistral Small 4 is faster, generating 120 tokens per second compared with 78 tokens per second.
Which model is cheaper to run?
Mistral Small 4 is cheaper at $0.07 per 1M tokens blended, compared with $3.08 (7:2:1 cache:input:output ratio).
Which model has lower latency?
Mistral Small 4 has lower latency, with a time to first token of 0.34s compared with 1.40s.
Which model has a larger context window?
Claude Opus 5.5 has a larger context window, supporting 1M tokens compared with 256K tokens.
Verdict
Choose Mistral Small 4 for high-volume agent orchestration, low-cost document parsing, and edge deployments, or choose Claude Opus 5.5 for large-scale software development agents, enterprise codebases, and mission-critical scientific synthesis.
Frequently asked questions
Which is cheaper: Mistral Small 4 or Claude Opus 5.5?+
Mistral Small 4 costs $0.1/1M input and $0.3/1M output tokens, while Claude Opus 5.5 costs $4/1M input and $20/1M output tokens.
Which model has a larger context window: Mistral Small 4 or Claude Opus 5.5?+
Mistral Small 4 supports 256K tokens whereas Claude Opus 5.5 supports 1M tokens.
Understand key metrics like context window, token pricing, reasoning mode, and SWE-bench scores in our comprehensive AI glossary.
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Benchmark scores, token prices, and rate limits evolve rapidly as AI labs release model updates. Always verify current specifications and pricing on the official provider documentation.
Sources: Mistral AI & Anthropic Official Documentation