Claude Opus 5.5 vs Mistral Small 4: cost per task
Mistral Small 4 is cheaper on 14 of 14 tasks and about 14.8x cheaper on average (geometric mean).
| Task | Claude Opus 5.5 | Mistral Small 4 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Answer a chat question | 2.5¢ | 0.08¢ | 30.5x |
| Reply to a customer email | 0.79¢ | 0.22¢ | 3.7x |
| Write a 1,500-word blog post | 7.3¢ | 0.47¢ | 15.7x |
| Write 10 product descriptions | 8.8¢ | 0.19¢ | 46.7x |
| Translate 1,000 words | 5.1¢ | 0.75¢ | 6.8x |
| Proofread one page (500 words) | 2.2¢ | 0.26¢ | 8.6x |
| Summarize a 20-page PDF | 8.9¢ | 0.33¢ | 27.0x |
| Extract data from an invoice | 2.1¢ | 0.16¢ | 12.5x |
| Analyze a 200-row spreadsheet | 34¢ | 0.71¢ | 47.9x |
| Answer from 5 retrieved documents (RAG) | 5.5¢ | 0.25¢ | 22.0x |
| Classify 100 support tickets | 1.8¢ | 0.46¢ | 3.8x |
| Review 500 lines of code | 16¢ | 0.62¢ | 25.8x |
| Write a SQL query | 2.2¢ | 0.19¢ | 11.4x |
| Run a 50-step coding agent | $1.68 | 13¢ | 12.5x |
Specs and list prices
| Claude Opus 5.5 | Mistral Small 4 | |
|---|---|---|
| Input per 1M | $4.00 | $0.15 |
| Output per 1M | $20.00 | $0.60 |
| Cached input per 1M | $0.20 | $0.015 |
| Context | 1M | 262K |
| Providers | 11 | 4 |
| Reasoning | always | default |
| LMArena Text | 1508 | - |
| Released | Sep 22, 2026 | Mar 16, 2026 |
FAQ
Is Claude Opus 5.5 or Mistral Small 4 cheaper?
Mistral Small 4 is cheaper on 14 of 14 tasks and about 14.8x cheaper on average (geometric mean).
How much does Claude Opus 5.5 cost compared to Mistral Small 4 per token?
Claude Opus 5.5: $4.00 input and $20.00 output per 1M tokens. Mistral Small 4: $0.15 input and $0.60 output. Token prices alone mislead - models use different numbers of tokens for the same task, which is what the task table shows.