Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct vs Mistral Small 3.1 24B vs GPT-4o mini
Too close to call on our weighted score (GPT-4o mini 56, Mistral Small 3.1 24B 55, Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct 44). The right pick depends on what you value most.
MetaLlama-3.1-70B-Instruct
44/100- ECI125.9
- Price$0.72 / $0.72
- Context128K
Mistral AIMistral Small 3.1 24B
55/100- ECI127.5
- Price$0.229 / $0.436
- Context128K
OpenAIGPT-4o mini
56/100- ECI126.6
- Price$0.15 / $0.60
- Context128K
Too close to call
It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 1 points (GPT-4o mini 56/100, Mistral Small 3.1 24B 55/100, Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct 44/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Mistral Small 3.1 24B for raw capability and GPT-4o mini on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
- CapabilityMistral Small 3.1 24BCapabilities Index (ECI): Mistral Small 3.1 24B 127.5 · GPT-4o mini 126.6 · Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct 125.9
- Lowest priceGPT-4o miniGPT-4o mini $0.263 · Mistral Small 3.1 24B $0.281 · Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct $0.72 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
- Longest contextAbout the sameLlama-3.1-70B-Instruct 128,000 · Mistral Small 3.1 24B 128,000 · GPT-4o mini 128,000 tokens
- Widest inputsGPT-4o miniLlama-3.1-70B-Instruct: Text · Mistral Small 3.1 24B: Text, Images · GPT-4o mini: Text, Images, PDFs
- Self-hostingLlama-3.1-70B-Instruct and Mistral Small 3.1 24BPublishes downloadable weights
| Measure | Weight | Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct | Mistral Small 3.1 24B | GPT-4o mini |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI) | 50% | 48 | 50 | 49 |
| Price | 25% | 57 | 76 | 77 |
| Inputs & features | 15% | 25 | 60 | 70 |
| Context window | 10% | 24 | 24 | 24 |
| Overall | 100% | 44/100 | 55/100 | 56/100 |
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Llama-3.1-70B-InstructMeta | Mistral Small 3.1 24BMistral AI | GPT-4o miniOpenAI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | 125.9 | 127.5 (best) | 126.6 |
| ECI rank | #136 of 148 | #132 of 148 (best) | #135 of 148 |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | 44.2% | 47.5% (best) | 37.7% |
| FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics | — | — | 0.7% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | 3.6% | 5.8% | 6.9% (best) |
| SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions | — | — | 8.3% |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $0.72 | $0.229 | $0.15 (best) |
| Output | $0.72 | $0.436 (best) | $0.60 |
| Cached input | — | — | $0.075 |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.72 | $0.281 | $0.263 (best) |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate | Same rate |
| Price source | Median of 5 providers | Median of 2 providers | Official OpenAI API |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 128,000 tokens | 128,000 tokens | 128,000 tokens |
| Max output | 4,096 tokens | 16,384 tokens (best) | 16,384 tokens (best) |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | No | Yes | Yes |
| PDFs | No | No | Yes |
| Audio | No | No | No |
| Video | No | No | No |
| Reasoning | No | No | No |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | No | Yes | Yes |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | Open | Open | Proprietary |
| API model ID | — | — | gpt-4o-mini |
| API providers | 5 | 2 | 21 (best) |
| Released | Jul 23, 2024 | Mar 17, 2025 | Jul 18, 2024 |
| Knowledge cutoff | Dec 2023 | Jun 2024 | Sep 2023 |
What would a month cost?
Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.
- Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct$8.64
- Mistral Small 3.1 24B$3.16
- GPT-4o mini$2.70
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct, Mistral Small 3.1 24B or GPT-4o mini?
It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 1 points (GPT-4o mini 56/100, Mistral Small 3.1 24B 55/100, Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct 44/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Mistral Small 3.1 24B for raw capability and GPT-4o mini on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
Which is cheaper, Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct, Mistral Small 3.1 24B or GPT-4o mini?
GPT-4o mini is cheaper at $0.15 input / $0.60 output per million tokens (official OpenAI API price). Mistral Small 3.1 24B costs $0.229 input / $0.436 output per million tokens (median across 2 API providers); Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct costs $0.72 input / $0.72 output per million tokens (median across 5 API providers). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.263 per million tokens for GPT-4o mini versus $0.281 for Mistral Small 3.1 24B (1.1× as much) and $0.72 for Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct (2.7× as much).
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
Mistral Small 3.1 24B scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Mistral Small 3.1 24B 127.5 (#132 of 148), GPT-4o mini 126.6 (#135 of 148) and Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct 125.9 (#136 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (122.6–129.4 vs 120.5–128.5), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Mistral Small 3.1 24B 47.5%, Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct 44.2%, GPT-4o mini 37.7%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — GPT-4o mini 6.9%, Mistral Small 3.1 24B 5.8%, Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct 3.6%.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct, Mistral Small 3.1 24B and GPT-4o mini yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Mistral Small 3.1 24B 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?
Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct, Mistral Small 3.1 24B and GPT-4o mini share the same 128,000-token context window. Maximum output per response: Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct up to 4,096, Mistral Small 3.1 24B up to 16,384, GPT-4o mini up to 16,384 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct accepts text; Mistral Small 3.1 24B accepts text and images; GPT-4o mini accepts text, images and PDFs. GPT-4o mini handles the widest range of inputs.
Are any of these open source?
Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct and Mistral Small 3.1 24B publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; GPT-4o mini is proprietary.
Which is newer?
Mistral Small 3.1 24B is the newest, released Mar 17, 2025. Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct came out Jul 23, 2024; GPT-4o mini came out Jul 18, 2024. Knowledge cutoff: Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct Dec 2023, Mistral Small 3.1 24B Jun 2024, GPT-4o mini Sep 2023.
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.
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