Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Mistral Small 4: cost per task
Mistral Small 4 is cheaper on 14 of 14 tasks and about 7.4x cheaper on average (geometric mean).
| Task | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Mistral Small 4 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Answer a chat question | 1.3¢ | 0.08¢ | 15.2x |
| Reply to a customer email | 0.40¢ | 0.22¢ | 1.8x |
| Write a 1,500-word blog post | 3.7¢ | 0.47¢ | 7.8x |
| Write 10 product descriptions | 4.4¢ | 0.19¢ | 23.4x |
| Translate 1,000 words | 2.6¢ | 0.75¢ | 3.4x |
| Proofread one page (500 words) | 1.1¢ | 0.26¢ | 4.3x |
| Summarize a 20-page PDF | 4.5¢ | 0.33¢ | 13.5x |
| Extract data from an invoice | 1.0¢ | 0.16¢ | 6.2x |
| Analyze a 200-row spreadsheet | 17¢ | 0.71¢ | 23.9x |
| Answer from 5 retrieved documents (RAG) | 2.7¢ | 0.25¢ | 11.0x |
| Classify 100 support tickets | 0.89¢ | 0.46¢ | 1.9x |
| Review 500 lines of code | 8.0¢ | 0.62¢ | 12.9x |
| Write a SQL query | 1.1¢ | 0.19¢ | 5.7x |
| Run a 50-step coding agent | 84¢ | 13¢ | 6.3x |
Specs and list prices
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Mistral Small 4 | |
|---|---|---|
| Input per 1M | $2.00 | $0.15 |
| Output per 1M | $10.00 | $0.60 |
| Cached input per 1M | $0.10 | $0.015 |
| Context | 1M | 262K |
| Providers | 8 | 4 |
| Reasoning | always | default |
| LMArena Text | 1475 | - |
| Released | Sep 28, 2026 | Mar 16, 2026 |
FAQ
Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Mistral Small 4 cheaper?
Mistral Small 4 is cheaper on 14 of 14 tasks and about 7.4x cheaper on average (geometric mean).
How much does Claude Sonnet 5.5 cost compared to Mistral Small 4 per token?
Claude Sonnet 5.5: $2.00 input and $10.00 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.