GPT-4.1 mini vs GPT-5 Nano vs Mistral Medium 3

GPT-5 Nano is the better all-round choice, scoring 70/100 against GPT-4.1 mini (60) and Mistral Medium 3 (53). It leads on capability and price. GPT-4.1 mini wins on context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

GPT-5 Nano is cheaper at $0.05 input / $0.40 output per million tokens (official OpenAI API price). GPT-4.1 mini costs $0.40 input / $1.60 output per million tokens (official OpenAI API price); Mistral Medium 3 costs $0.40 input / $2.00 output per million tokens (official Mistral API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.138 per million tokens for GPT-5 Nano versus $0.70 for GPT-4.1 mini (5.1× as much) and $0.80 for Mistral Medium 3 (5.8× as much).

GPT-5 Nano scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): GPT-5 Nano 139.4 (#102 of 148), GPT-4.1 mini 135.0 (#115 of 148) and Mistral Medium 3 134.1 (#117 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (134.9–141.7 vs 131.2–136.6), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — GPT-5 Nano 69.4%, GPT-4.1 mini 65.9%, Mistral Medium 3 59.5%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — GPT-5 Nano 81.1%, GPT-4.1 mini 44.7%, Mistral Medium 3 32.2%.

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for GPT-4.1 mini, GPT-5 Nano and Mistral Medium 3 yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, GPT-5 Nano leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.

GPT-4.1 mini has the largest context window at 1,047,576 tokens, against 400,000 for GPT-5 Nano and 131,072 for Mistral Medium 3. Maximum output per response: GPT-4.1 mini up to 32,768, GPT-5 Nano up to 128,000, Mistral Medium 3 up to 131,072 tokens.

GPT-4.1 mini accepts text, images and PDFs; GPT-5 Nano accepts text and images; Mistral Medium 3 accepts text and images. GPT-4.1 mini handles the widest range of inputs.

No. GPT-4.1 mini, GPT-5 Nano and Mistral Medium 3 are proprietary and only available through APIs and apps.

GPT-5 Nano is the newest, released Aug 7, 2025. Mistral Medium 3 came out May 7, 2025; GPT-4.1 mini came out Apr 14, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: GPT-4.1 mini Apr 2024, GPT-5 Nano May 30, 2024, Mistral Medium 3 May 2025.

Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Oct 4, 2026.