ZMIME
Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

GPT-4.1 mini vs Qwen3.5 9B vs Mistral Medium 3

Qwen3.5 9B comes out ahead, 72 to 60 and 53 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.

  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. Our pick

    Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.5 9B

    Released Feb 23, 2026

    72/100
    • ECI139.5
    • Price$0.10 / $0.15
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.5 9B

  3. 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
01 — Verdict

Qwen3.5 9B is our pick

Qwen3.5 9B is the better all-round choice, scoring 72/100 against GPT-4.1 mini (60) and Mistral Medium 3 (53). It leads on capability, price and inputs & features. GPT-4.1 mini wins on context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityQwen3.5 9BCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 9B 139.5 · GPT-4.1 mini 135.0 · Mistral Medium 3 134.1
  • Lowest priceQwen3.5 9BQwen3.5 9B $0.113 · GPT-4.1 mini $0.70 · Mistral Medium 3 $0.80 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextGPT-4.1 miniGPT-4.1 mini 1,047,576 · Qwen3.5 9B 262,144 · Mistral Medium 3 131,072 tokens
  • Widest inputsGPT-4.1 mini and Qwen3.5 9BGPT-4.1 mini: Text, Images, PDFs · Qwen3.5 9B: Text, Images, Video · Mistral Medium 3: Text, Images
  • Self-hostingQwen3.5 9BPublishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightGPT-4.1 miniQwen3.5 9BMistral Medium 3
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%596558
Price25%579554
Inputs & features15%708050
Context window10%613724
Overall100%60/10072/10053/100
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 Qwen3.5 9B vs Mistral Medium 3 specifications side by side
SpecificationGPT-4.1 miniOpenAIQwen3.5 9BAlibaba (Qwen)Mistral Medium 3Mistral AI
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)135.0139.5 (best)134.1
ECI rank#115 of 148#101 of 148 (best)#117 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions65.9%79.0% (best)59.5%
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics6.7%——
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics44.7%61.7% (best)32.2%
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions12.7%——
Price per million tokens
Input$0.40$0.10 (best)$0.40
Output$1.60$0.15 (best)$2.00
Cached input$0.10——
Blended (3:1)$0.70$0.113 (best)$0.80
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial OpenAI APIMedian of 14 providersOfficial Mistral API
Limits
Context window1,047,576 tokens (best)262,144 tokens131,072 tokens
Max output32,768 tokens65,536 tokens131,072 tokens (best)
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesYesYesYes
PDFsYesNoNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoNoYesNo
ReasoningNoYesNo
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputYesYesNo
Availability
WeightsProprietaryOpenProprietary
API model IDgpt-4.1-mini—mistral-medium-2505
API providers24 (best)155
ReleasedApr 14, 2025Feb 23, 2026May 7, 2025
Knowledge cutoffApr 2024—May 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
  • Qwen3.5 9B$1.30
  • Mistral Medium 3$8.00
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: GPT-4.1 mini, Qwen3.5 9B or Mistral Medium 3?

Qwen3.5 9B is the better all-round choice, scoring 72/100 against GPT-4.1 mini (60) and Mistral Medium 3 (53). It leads on capability, price and inputs & features. GPT-4.1 mini wins on context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, GPT-4.1 mini, Qwen3.5 9B or Mistral Medium 3?

Qwen3.5 9B is cheaper at $0.10 input / $0.15 output per million tokens (median across 14 API providers). 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 $0.113 per million tokens for Qwen3.5 9B versus $0.70 for GPT-4.1 mini (6.2× as much) and $0.80 for Mistral Medium 3 (7.1× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen3.5 9B scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 9B 139.5 (#101 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 (136.5–141.3 vs 131.2–136.6), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen3.5 9B 79.0%, GPT-4.1 mini 65.9%, Mistral Medium 3 59.5%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3.5 9B 61.7%, 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, Qwen3.5 9B and Mistral Medium 3 yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen3.5 9B 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 262,144 for Qwen3.5 9B and 131,072 for Mistral Medium 3. Maximum output per response: GPT-4.1 mini up to 32,768, Qwen3.5 9B up to 65,536, Mistral Medium 3 up to 131,072 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

GPT-4.1 mini accepts text, images and PDFs; Qwen3.5 9B accepts text, images and video; Mistral Medium 3 accepts text and images. GPT-4.1 mini handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Qwen3.5 9B publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; GPT-4.1 mini and Mistral Medium 3 is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Qwen3.5 9B is the newest, released Feb 23, 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.

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

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