Mistral Medium 3.5 vs GPT-5.5
Benchmarks, API Token Pricing, Context Window & Speed Comparison
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Mistral Medium 3.5 by Mistral AI and GPT-5.5 by OpenAI represent two of the frontier AI models analyzed in our comprehensive 2026 AI benchmark and LLM comparison. In this head-to-head evaluation, we examine API token pricing, context window specifications, inference speed (tokens per second), and empirical reasoning performance. From a pure economic perspective, Mistral Medium 3.5 holds a notable pricing advantage for token ingestion. On output generation, Mistral Medium 3.5 is more economical per million generated tokens. In data-heavy architectures requiring extensive repository or document analysis, GPT-5.5 provides an expanded memory horizon with 1,050K tokens. In latency-sensitive production environments, GPT-5.5 leads in tokens-per-second throughput, making it ideal for real-time conversational agents and high-concurrency workflows. Below is the complete empirical head-to-head breakdown across cost, speed, context, and capability matrices.
Changez et Comparez les Modèles
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Mistral Medium 3.5
Équilibré d'entreprisede pointe d'entreprise generalist offrant 262K contexte, multimodal vision, hybrid raisonnement, et à poids ouverts sous attractive $0.40/$2.00 tarification.
$0.40 / 1M
$2.00 / 1M
262.1K tokens
54%
GPT-5.5
GPT de pointe par défautle default de pointe GPT pour codage, computer use, recherche et knowledge travail.
$5.00 / 1M
$30.00 / 1M
1.05M tokens
81%
Différences Clés en un Coup d’Œil
- Mistral Medium 3.5 is 13.8x cheaper for API usage (input + output tokens combined).
- GPT-5.5 has a larger context window (1M vs 262K tokens).
- GPT-5.5 is faster at 112 tok/s vs 90 tok/s.
- GPT-5.5 leads on SWE-bench coding (81.0% vs 54.0%).
| Caractéristique | Mistral Medium 3.5 | GPT-5.5 |
|---|---|---|
Intelligence Index Composite reasoning & knowledge score (0-100) | 55 | 84 |
Provider | Mistral AI | OpenAI |
Input Price Cost per million input tokens | $0.40 / 1M | $5.00 / 1M |
Output Price Cost per million output tokens | $2.00 / 1M | $30.00 / 1M |
Blended Price Weighted 7:2:1 cache:input:output per 1M | $0.35 / 1M | $4.35 / 1M |
Context Window Maximum input + output tokens | 262.1K tokens~393 A4 pages of text | 1.05M tokens~1,575 A4 pages of text |
Max Output Tokens Per single request | 33K | 128K |
Throughput Speed Tokens generated per second | 90 tok/s | 112 tok/s |
SWE-bench Verified Real-world software engineering | 54% | 81% |
GPQA Diamond Graduate-level reasoning | 68% | 80% |
Cached Input Price Prompt caching discount per 1M tokens | $0.10 / 1M | $0.50 / 1M |
Qui gagne où ?
At-a-glance decision frameworkScores de Benchmarks Vérifiés
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.
Latence et Temps de Réponse
Time to first token (TTFT) and estimated end-to-end response time for a typical 500-token response.
Simulateur Interactif de Coût de Tokens
Adjust sliders to calculate projected monthly cloud API spending with prompt caching discounts.
Mistral Medium 3.5 · Strengths & Key Advantages
- Expansive 262K contexte capacité avec near-zero needle récupération degradation
- Highly attractive $0.40 dans / $2.00 out tarification pour un d'entreprise phare
- à poids ouverts availability avec natif visuel et raisonnement profondeur
Considerations & Trade-offs
- Trails propriétaire multi-billions paramètre giants sur bleeding-périphérie codage
- nécessite dédié d'entreprise matériel pour complet local déploiement
GPT-5.5 · Strengths & Key Advantages
- meilleur-dans-classe à long terme agentic reliability
- 1M-token contexte avec solid recall
- solide codage, recherche et utilisation de l'ordinateur performances
- meilleur-dans-classe reliability pour long autonome fonctionne
Considerations & Trade-offs
- Roughly twice le prix de GPT-5.4
- sortie tarification makes élevé-volume use expensive
Token Use & Task Economics
Estimated cost and token consumption to complete one representative agentic task.
| Metric | Mistral Medium 3.5 | GPT-5.5 |
|---|---|---|
Cost per Task Estimated USD to finish one task | $0.38 | $3.90 |
Output Tokens / Task Tokens generated per task | 38K | 64K |
Reasoning Tokens / Task Thinking tokens burned per task | 18K | 37K |
Spécifications Techniques
Architecture, release timeline, capabilities, and modalities.
| Caractéristique | Mistral Medium 3.5 | GPT-5.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Official API Model ID (SDK) | mistral-medium-3-5-latest | gpt-5-5 |
| API Protocol | OpenAI-Compatible REST / vLLM / SGLang / HuggingFace TGI | OpenAI Responses API & Chat Completions v1 |
| Release Date | 2026-04 | 2026-04 |
| Knowledge Cutoff | February 2026 | December 2025 |
| Architecture | Enterprise Hybrid Reasoning MoE | Default frontier unified reasoning model |
| Parameters | Confidential (~80B MoE) | Confidential |
| Enterprise Rate Limits (RPM / TPM) | Unlimited (Hardware-bound on self-hosted GPU) / 10,000 RPM Cloud · Unlimited local throughput / 10M+ TPM Managed Cloud | 10,000 – 30,000 RPM (Tier 5 Enterprise) · 4,000,000 – 10,000,000 TPM |
| Long-Context Tier (>128K/200K) | Flat rate ($0.4/1M in) across full 262K window | Flat rate ($5/1M in) across full 1050K window |
| Prompt Cache Policy & TTL | Cached input at $0.1/1M tokens | Automatic prefix caching at $0.5/1M (no extra cache-write fee) |
| 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 tool + Hosted Code Interpreter & File Search RAG |
| Official Fine-Tuning Support | Full Weights SFT, LoRA, QLoRA, DPO & GRPO RL (Unsloth / Axolotl / Llama-Factory) | Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT), Direct Preference (DPO) & Reinforcement Fine-Tuning (RFT) |
| 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) · 50 GB VRAM (4-bit Quantized) · 172 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) | OpenAI Preparedness Framework Audited & System Card Published |
| 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 Medium 3.5 vs GPT-5.5: Réponses Rapides (FAQ)
Which is more intelligent, Mistral Medium 3.5 or GPT-5.5?
GPT-5.5 is more intelligent. It scores 84 compared with 55 on the composite Intelligence Index.
Which model is faster?
GPT-5.5 is faster, generating 112 tokens per second compared with 90 tokens per second.
Which model is cheaper to run?
Mistral Medium 3.5 is cheaper at $0.35 per 1M tokens blended, compared with $4.35 (7:2:1 cache:input:output ratio).
Which model has lower latency?
Mistral Medium 3.5 has lower latency, with a time to first token of 0.45s compared with 1.18s.
Which model has a larger context window?
GPT-5.5 has a larger context window, supporting 1.05M tokens compared with 262.1K tokens.
Verdict
Verdict & Model Selection Recommendation: Choose Mistral Medium 3.5 if your priority is Enterprise intelligence hubs, sovereign multilingual workflows, and multi-turn analytical agents. Its performance in demanding tasks justifies its operational token cost. Choose GPT-5.5 if your workflow prioritizes Frontier agents and demanding professional knowledge work. For large-scale batch processing or customer-facing conversational interfaces, its balance of speed and economics delivers superior ROI.
Questions fréquentes
How does Mistral Medium 3.5 compare to GPT-5.5 in API token pricing and cost per token?+
Mistral Medium 3.5 costs $0.40 per 1M input tokens and $2.00 per 1M output tokens, whereas GPT-5.5 costs $5.00 input and $30.00 output. Overall, Mistral Medium 3.5 is the more cost-effective model for high-volume API pipelines. Both models support prompt caching discounts of up to 90% for repeated prompt prefixes.
Which model has a larger context window: Mistral Medium 3.5 or GPT-5.5?+
Mistral Medium 3.5 supports a context window of 262K tokens (~197k words), while GPT-5.5 supports 1,050K tokens (~788k words). Therefore, GPT-5.5 can process more textual data and document context in a single prompt.
Which AI model is better for software engineering and coding: Mistral Medium 3.5 or GPT-5.5?+
Mistral Medium 3.5 scores 54% on SWE-bench Verified while GPT-5.5 scores 81%. For autonomous software engineering and multi-file debugging, GPT-5.5 holds the verified benchmark lead.
What is the difference in reasoning capability and extended thinking between Mistral Medium 3.5 and GPT-5.5?+
Mistral Medium 3.5 features native chain-of-thought extended thinking mode with configurable reasoning effort. In contrast, GPT-5.5 provides chain-of-thought reasoning depth for complex math and science.
How does inference speed (tokens per second) compare between Mistral Medium 3.5 and GPT-5.5?+
Mistral Medium 3.5 generates approximately 90 tokens per second, while GPT-5.5 delivers 112 tokens per second. In latency-sensitive production environments, GPT-5.5 provides faster time-to-first-token (TTFT) and higher streaming response velocity.
Can you implement a tiered LLM routing setup combining Mistral Medium 3.5 and GPT-5.5 to optimize costs?+
Yes! High-efficiency architectures route high-frequency routine classification and conversational tasks to Mistral Medium 3.5 to save operational costs, and dynamically escalate complex architectural queries or reasoning tasks to GPT-5.5. This tiered routing pattern cuts overall API bills by up to 70%.
Understand key metrics like context window, token pricing, reasoning mode, and SWE-bench scores in our comprehensive AI glossary.
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Les scores de benchmarks, tarifs par token et limites évoluent rapidement. Vérifiez toujours les spécifications actuelles sur la documentation officielle du fournisseur.
Sources: GetInfoUs Independent AI Benchmarks & Official API Specs