GPT-4.1 mini vs Mistral Medium 3 vs Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct

GPT-4.1 mini is the better all-round choice, scoring 62/100 against Mistral Medium 3 (47) and Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct (39). It leads on price, inputs & features and context window. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.

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-Next 80B-A3B Instruct costs $0.50 input / $2.00 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 $0.875 for Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct (1.3× as much).

There is no independent benchmark that covers all three models yet. GPT-4.1 mini has an ECI of 135.0, Mistral Medium 3 has an ECI of 134.1 and Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct has not been scored yet.

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for GPT-4.1 mini, Mistral Medium 3 and Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. Test both on a sample of your own tasks. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.

GPT-4.1 mini has the largest context window at 1,047,576 tokens, against 131,072 for Mistral Medium 3 and 131,072 for Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct. Maximum output per response: GPT-4.1 mini up to 32,768, Mistral Medium 3 up to 131,072, Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct up to 32,768 tokens.

GPT-4.1 mini accepts text, images and PDFs; Mistral Medium 3 accepts text and images; Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct accepts text. GPT-4.1 mini handles the widest range of inputs.

Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; GPT-4.1 mini and Mistral Medium 3 is proprietary.

Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct is the newest, released Sep 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, Mistral Medium 3 May 2025, Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct Apr 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.