ZMIME
Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

GPT-4.1 mini vs Mistral Medium 3 vs Qwen3.5 Plus

Qwen3.5 Plus comes out ahead, 66 to 60 and 53 on our weighted score, though GPT-4.1 mini is 22% cheaper per token.

  1. OpenAI

    GPT-4.1 mini

    Released Apr 14, 2025

    60/100
    • ECI135.0
    • Price$0.40 / $1.60
    • Context1.05M
    Full specs Remove GPT-4.1 mini

  2. Mistral AI

    Mistral Medium 3

    Released May 7, 2025

    53/100
    • ECI134.1
    • Price$0.40 / $2.00
    • Context131K
    Full specs Remove Mistral Medium 3
  3. Our pick

    Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.5 Plus

    Released Feb 16, 2026

    66/100
    • ECI146.8
    • Price$0.40 / $2.40
    • Context1M
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.5 Plus
01 — Verdict

Qwen3.5 Plus is our pick

Qwen3.5 Plus is the better all-round choice, scoring 66/100 against GPT-4.1 mini (60) and Mistral Medium 3 (53). It leads on capability. GPT-4.1 mini wins on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityQwen3.5 PlusCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 Plus 146.8 · GPT-4.1 mini 135.0 · Mistral Medium 3 134.1
  • Lowest priceGPT-4.1 miniGPT-4.1 mini $0.70 · Mistral Medium 3 $0.80 · Qwen3.5 Plus $0.90 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextGPT-4.1 miniGPT-4.1 mini 1,047,576 · Qwen3.5 Plus 1,000,000 · Mistral Medium 3 131,072 tokens
  • Widest inputsGPT-4.1 mini and Qwen3.5 PlusGPT-4.1 mini: Text, Images, PDFs · Mistral Medium 3: Text, Images · Qwen3.5 Plus: Text, Images, Video
  • Self-hostingNo open weightsAll three are available only through APIs
How the score is built
MeasureWeightGPT-4.1 miniMistral Medium 3Qwen3.5 Plus
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%595874
Price25%575452
Inputs & features15%705070
Context window10%612460
Overall100%60/10053/10066/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.

GPT-4.1 mini vs Mistral Medium 3 vs Qwen3.5 Plus specifications side by side
SpecificationGPT-4.1 miniOpenAIMistral Medium 3Mistral AIQwen3.5 PlusAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)135.0134.1146.8 (best)
ECI rank#115 of 148#117 of 148#65 of 148 (best)
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions65.9%59.5%84.9% (best)
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics6.7%——
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics44.7%32.2%86.7% (best)
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions12.7%—25.4% (best)
Price per million tokens
Input$0.40$0.40$0.40
Output$1.60 (best)$2.00$2.40
Cached input$0.10——
Blended (3:1)$0.70 (best)$0.80$0.90
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial OpenAI APIOfficial Mistral APIOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window1,047,576 tokens (best)131,072 tokens1,000,000 tokens
Max output32,768 tokens131,072 tokens (best)65,536 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesYesYesYes
PDFsYesNoNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoNoNoYes
ReasoningNoNoYes
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputYesNoNo
Availability
WeightsProprietaryProprietaryProprietary
API model IDgpt-4.1-minimistral-medium-2505qwen3.5-plus
API providers24 (best)510
ReleasedApr 14, 2025May 7, 2025Feb 16, 2026
Knowledge cutoffApr 2024May 2025Apr 2025
03 — Cost

What would a month cost?

Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.

  • GPT-4.1 mini$7.20
  • Mistral Medium 3$8.00
  • Qwen3.5 Plus$8.80
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: GPT-4.1 mini, Mistral Medium 3 or Qwen3.5 Plus?

Qwen3.5 Plus is the better all-round choice, scoring 66/100 against GPT-4.1 mini (60) and Mistral Medium 3 (53). It leads on capability. GPT-4.1 mini wins on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, GPT-4.1 mini, Mistral Medium 3 or Qwen3.5 Plus?

GPT-4.1 mini is cheaper at $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); Qwen3.5 Plus costs $0.40 input / $2.40 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.70 per million tokens for GPT-4.1 mini versus $0.80 for Mistral Medium 3 (1.1× as much) and $0.90 for Qwen3.5 Plus (1.3× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen3.5 Plus scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 Plus 146.8 (#65 of 148), GPT-4.1 mini 135.0 (#115 of 148) and Mistral Medium 3 134.1 (#117 of 148). Their confidence ranges do not overlap (144.6–148.1 vs 131.2–136.6), so the gap is a real one. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen3.5 Plus 84.9%, GPT-4.1 mini 65.9%, Mistral Medium 3 59.5%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3.5 Plus 86.7%, GPT-4.1 mini 44.7%, Mistral Medium 3 32.2%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for GPT-4.1 mini, Mistral Medium 3 and Qwen3.5 Plus yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen3.5 Plus leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.

Which has the bigger context window?

GPT-4.1 mini has the largest context window at 1,047,576 tokens, against 1,000,000 for Qwen3.5 Plus and 131,072 for Mistral Medium 3. Maximum output per response: GPT-4.1 mini up to 32,768, Mistral Medium 3 up to 131,072, Qwen3.5 Plus up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

GPT-4.1 mini accepts text, images and PDFs; Mistral Medium 3 accepts text and images; Qwen3.5 Plus accepts text, images and video. GPT-4.1 mini handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

No. GPT-4.1 mini, Mistral Medium 3 and Qwen3.5 Plus are proprietary and only available through APIs and apps.

Which is newer?

Qwen3.5 Plus is the newest, released Feb 16, 2026. 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, Mistral Medium 3 May 2025, Qwen3.5 Plus Apr 2025.

How do you decide the winner?

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.

05 — Keep comparing

Related comparisons