Mistral Small 4 vs Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking

    Comparison

    As of August 25, 2026, Mistral Small 4 is 32% cheaper per million tokens than Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking. Mistral Small 4 is $0.15 / $0.60 per million input/output tokens versus Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking at $0.10 / $1.00. Sources: https://docs.mistral.ai/platform/pricing/ and https://bailian.console.aliyun.com/

    Sources: Mistral AI pricing (https://docs.mistral.ai/platform/pricing/); Qwen pricing (https://bailian.console.aliyun.com/)

    Better value

    Mistral Small 4

    Mistral

    $0.75blended / 1M

    Input

    $0.15

    Output

    $0.60

    256K ctx|Open Source
    32%
    cheaper

    Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking

    Qwen

    $1.10blended / 1M

    Input

    $0.10

    Output

    $1.00

    262.1K ctx|Open Source
    Save $0.35 per million tokens by choosing Mistral Small 4 over Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking.

    Mistral Small 4 vs Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking 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.

    Score vs price

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

    Best score at each priceMistral Small 4Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking
    Metric
    Mistral Small 4
    Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking
    Provider
    Provider
    Mistral
    Qwen
    License
    Open Source
    Open Source
    Release Date
    2026-03-16
    2025-09-22
    Pricing (per 1M tokens)
    Input Price+50%
    $0.15
    $0.10
    Output Price-40%
    $0.60
    $1.00
    Blended (1M + 1M)
    $0.75
    $1.10
    Model Details
    Context Window
    256K
    262.1K
    Max Output Tokens
    256K
    262.1K
    Knowledge Cutoff
    N/A
    N/A
    Throughput
    4.3 tok/s
    N/A
    Benchmarks
    71.2%
    64.1%
    82.6%
    48%
    71.2%
    31.4%
    60%
    57%
    50.3%
    83.8%
    74.5%
    81.5%
    84.9%
    58.3%
    67.3%
    63.4%
    73.8%
    83.9%
    62.9%
    94.2%
    47.3%
    53.1%
    64.6%
    53.5%
    75.7%
    86.7%
    78%
    73.6%
    65%
    70.8%
    73.2%
    75%
    73.6%
    69.3%
    80.8%
    39.4%
    44.6%
    73.2%
    92.9%
    46.8%
    69.4%
    Benchmark Wins
    Mistral Small 4 4|0 Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking

    Verdict

    Mistral Small 4 vs Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking: the bottom line

    Mistral Small 4 offers both lower pricing and stronger benchmark performance across the board, making it the clear value leader in this comparison.

    Mistral Small 4 vs Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking FAQ

    Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 4 or Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking?

    As of August 25, 2026, Mistral Small 4 is 32% cheaper on blended LLM API pricing. Mistral Small 4 costs $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.60 per million output tokens ($0.75 blended 1M-in + 1M-out). Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking costs $0.10 / $1.00 per million tokens ($1.10 blended). Sources: https://docs.mistral.ai/platform/pricing/ and https://bailian.console.aliyun.com/. The cheapest LLM for your app still depends on how many output tokens you generate.

    How much does Mistral Small 4 vs Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking cost per million tokens?

    Mistral Small 4 Mistral API pricing is $0.15 input and $0.60 output per million tokens via Mistral AI. Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking Qwen API pricing is $0.10 input and $1.00 output per million tokens via Qwen. Use those four numbers, not ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro subscription prices, when you are comparing APIs.

    Which is better for coding, Mistral Small 4 or Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking?

    Mistral Small 4 has a published LiveCodeBench score of 63.6%. Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking does not have that eval on this page yet.

    What is the context window for Mistral Small 4 vs Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking?

    Mistral Small 4 supports a 256K token context window, while Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking supports 262K tokens. Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking 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, Mistral Small 4 or Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking?

    Mistral Small 4 leads on 4 of 4 shared benchmarks versus Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking'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 Mistral Small 4 or Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking better for production use?

    Both Mistral Small 4 and Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking are production API models. For cost-sensitive production traffic, Mistral Small 4 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 Mistral Small 4 and Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking in my app?

    Yes. Call Mistral Small 4 through Mistral AI and Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking through Qwen 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 Mistral Small 4 vs Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking pricing data?

    List rates are the latest published Mistral API pricing and Qwen API pricing, quoted per million tokens. Official rate sheets: https://docs.mistral.ai/platform/pricing/ and https://bailian.console.aliyun.com/. 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 Mistral Small 4 and Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking?

    Mistral Small 4 supports up to 256K output tokens per request, while Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking supports up to 262K 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, Mistral Small 4 or Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking?

    Mistral Small 4 has a measured throughput of approximately 4.3 tokens/second. Throughput data for Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking is not yet available. 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 Mistral Small 4 vs Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking comparison?

    Use the model pickers at the top of this LLM comparison. Search any model in the index and the URL updates. Open Mistral Small 4 or Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking from the sidebar for the single-model API pricing page, or go back to the LLM pricing table to sort by cheapest blended cost.

    Mistral Small 4 vs Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking pricing

    This comparison covers API pricing, context window, throughput, and benchmark scores. Mistral Small 4 costs $0.15/M input and $0.60/M output via Mistral AI. Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking costs $0.10/M input and $1.00/M output.

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

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