GPT-4.1 mini vs Mistral Small

    Comparison

    As of August 25, 2026, Mistral Small is 60% cheaper per million tokens than GPT-4.1 mini. GPT-4.1 mini is $0.40 / $1.60 per million input/output tokens versus Mistral Small at $0.20 / $0.60. Sources: https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing and https://docs.mistral.ai/platform/pricing/

    Sources: OpenAI API pricing (https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing); Mistral AI pricing (https://docs.mistral.ai/platform/pricing/)

    GPT-4.1 mini

    OpenAI

    $2.00blended / 1M

    Input

    $0.40

    Output

    $1.60

    1M ctx|Proprietary
    60%
    cheaper
    Better value

    Mistral Small

    Mistral

    $0.80blended / 1M

    Input

    $0.20

    Output

    $0.60

    32.8K ctx|Open Source
    Save $1.20 per million tokens by choosing Mistral Small over GPT-4.1 mini.

    GPT-4.1 mini vs Mistral Small comparison

    Token pricing, specs, and benchmarks side by side

    Shared benchmarks

    Each bar is share of the current leader on that eval. Click a row to open the board.

    GPT-4.1 miniMistral Small

    Score vs price

    MMLU. Left is cheaper. Up is a higher score. The line is the best score you can buy at each price.

    Best score at each priceGPT-4.1 miniMistral Small
    Metric
    GPT-4.1 mini
    Mistral Small
    Provider
    Provider
    OpenAI
    Mistral
    License
    Proprietary
    Open Source
    Release Date
    2025-04-14
    2024-09-17
    Pricing (per 1M tokens)
    Input Price+100%
    $0.40
    $0.20
    Output Price+167%
    $1.60
    $0.60
    Blended (1M + 1M)
    $2.00
    $0.80
    Model Details
    Context Window
    1M
    32.8K
    Max Output Tokens
    32.8K
    32.8K
    Knowledge Cutoff
    2024-05-31
    N/A
    Throughput
    150 tok/s
    0.1 tok/s
    Benchmarks
    3.7%
    65%
    65.8%
    40.4%
    84.1%
    78.5%
    56.8%
    40.2%
    49.6%
    88%
    50.5%
    87.5%
    68.7%
    72.7%
    87.3%
    88.4%
    54.6%
    57.9%
    0%
    35%
    73.1%
    84.6%
    87.8%
    77.2%
    67%
    71.9%
    Benchmark Wins
    GPT-4.1 mini 1|0 Mistral Small

    Verdict

    GPT-4.1 mini vs Mistral Small: the bottom line

    Mistral Small offers significantly lower pricing, while GPT-4.1 mini leads on benchmark performance. Your choice depends on whether cost efficiency or raw capability matters more for your use case.

    GPT-4.1 mini vs Mistral Small FAQ

    Which is cheaper, GPT-4.1 mini or Mistral Small?

    As of August 25, 2026, Mistral Small is 60% cheaper on blended LLM API pricing. Mistral Small costs $0.20 per million input tokens and $0.60 per million output tokens ($0.80 blended 1M-in + 1M-out). GPT-4.1 mini costs $0.40 / $1.60 per million tokens ($2.00 blended). Sources: https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing and https://docs.mistral.ai/platform/pricing/. The cheapest LLM for your app still depends on how many output tokens you generate.

    How much does GPT-4.1 mini vs Mistral Small cost per million tokens?

    GPT-4.1 mini OpenAI API pricing is $0.40 input and $1.60 output per million tokens via OpenAI. Mistral Small Mistral API pricing is $0.20 input and $0.60 output per million tokens via Mistral AI. Use those four numbers, not ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro subscription prices, when you are comparing APIs.

    Which is better for coding, GPT-4.1 mini or Mistral Small?

    GPT-4.1 mini has a published SWE-bench Verified score of 23.6%. Mistral Small does not have that eval on this page yet.

    What is the context window for GPT-4.1 mini vs Mistral Small?

    GPT-4.1 mini supports a 1M token context window, while Mistral Small supports 33K tokens. GPT-4.1 mini offers a larger context window. Filling a larger window bills more input tokens, so the cheaper-per-million model can still cost more on long documents.

    Which model performs better on benchmarks, GPT-4.1 mini or Mistral Small?

    GPT-4.1 mini leads on 1 of 1 shared benchmarks versus Mistral Small's 0 wins. Check the comparison table for GPQA Diamond, SWE-bench, MMLU, HLE, and the other evals we track. Token price and benchmark score together are the usual LLM comparison, not either number alone.

    Is GPT-4.1 mini or Mistral Small better for production use?

    Both GPT-4.1 mini and Mistral Small are production API models. For cost-sensitive production traffic, Mistral Small has better economics on the blended 1M-in + 1M-out scale. For maximum capability, weight the benchmark table for your domain. Many production stacks route cheap models for drafts and a frontier model for the hard turn, which is usually cheaper than sending everything to the expensive API.

    Can I switch between GPT-4.1 mini and Mistral Small in my app?

    Yes. Call GPT-4.1 mini through OpenAI and Mistral Small through Mistral AI with separate API keys, or through a gateway that already wraps both. Keep prompts in tokens, not characters, when you estimate the invoice. AnotherWrapper templates can swap providers without rewriting auth and billing.

    How accurate is this GPT-4.1 mini vs Mistral Small pricing data?

    List rates are the latest published OpenAI API pricing and Mistral API pricing, quoted per million tokens. Official rate sheets: https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing and https://docs.mistral.ai/platform/pricing/. Prompt caching, batch APIs, and committed-use discounts can change the invoice. Benchmark scores are from official publications and independent evals, updated as new numbers land.

    What is the output token limit for GPT-4.1 mini and Mistral Small?

    GPT-4.1 mini supports up to 33K output tokens per request, while Mistral Small supports up to 33K output tokens. Output tokens are usually the expensive half of API pricing, so a higher max output cap is a capability, not a discount.

    Which model has better throughput, GPT-4.1 mini or Mistral Small?

    GPT-4.1 mini runs at approximately 150 tokens/second while Mistral Small runs at 0.1 tokens/second. GPT-4.1 mini is faster in raw throughput. Throughput (tokens per second) and time-to-first-token are why two models with the same per-million-token price can still feel different in chat and agents.

    How do I switch the models in this GPT-4.1 mini vs Mistral Small comparison?

    Use the model pickers at the top of this LLM comparison. Search any model in the index and the URL updates. Open GPT-4.1 mini or Mistral Small from the sidebar for the single-model API pricing page, or go back to the LLM pricing table to sort by cheapest blended cost.

    GPT-4.1 mini vs Mistral Small pricing

    This comparison covers API pricing, context window, throughput, and benchmark scores. GPT-4.1 mini costs $0.40/M input and $1.60/M output. Mistral Small costs $0.20/M input and $0.60/M output via Mistral AI.

    Rank both on the LLM leaderboard, SWE-bench, and Humanity's Last Exam.

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