Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct vs Mistral Small 3.1 24B vs Qwen3 Max
Mistral Small 3.1 24B comes out ahead, 55 to 50 and 46 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.
MetaLlama-3.3-70B-Instruct
46/100- ECI127.3
- Price$0.59 / $0.724
- Context128K
- Our pick
Mistral AIMistral Small 3.1 24B
55/100- ECI127.5
- Price$0.229 / $0.436
- Context128K
Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen3 Max
50/100- ECI142.4
- Price$1.20 / $6.00
- Context262K
Mistral Small 3.1 24B is our pick
Mistral Small 3.1 24B is the better all-round choice, scoring 55/100 against Qwen3 Max (50) and Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct (46). It leads on price and inputs & features. Qwen3 Max wins on capability and context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
- CapabilityQwen3 MaxCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3 Max 142.4 · Mistral Small 3.1 24B 127.5 · Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct 127.3
- Lowest priceMistral Small 3.1 24BMistral Small 3.1 24B $0.281 · Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct $0.624 · Qwen3 Max $2.40 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
- Longest contextQwen3 MaxQwen3 Max 262,144 · Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct 128,000 · Mistral Small 3.1 24B 128,000 tokens
- Widest inputsMistral Small 3.1 24BLlama-3.3-70B-Instruct: Text · Mistral Small 3.1 24B: Text, Images · Qwen3 Max: Text
- Self-hostingLlama-3.3-70B-Instruct and Mistral Small 3.1 24BPublishes downloadable weights
| Measure | Weight | Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct | Mistral Small 3.1 24B | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI) | 50% | 49 | 50 | 68 |
| Price | 25% | 60 | 76 | 32 |
| Inputs & features | 15% | 25 | 60 | 25 |
| Context window | 10% | 24 | 24 | 37 |
| Overall | 100% | 46/100 | 55/100 | 50/100 |
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Llama-3.3-70B-InstructMeta | Mistral Small 3.1 24BMistral AI | Qwen3 MaxAlibaba (Qwen) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | 127.3 | 127.5 | 142.4 (best) |
| ECI rank | #133 of 148 | #132 of 148 | #91 of 148 (best) |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | 47.4% | 47.5% | 72.6% (best) |
| FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics | — | — | 19.0% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | 5.1% | 5.8% | 73.3% (best) |
| SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions | — | — | 48.8% |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $0.59 | $0.229 (best) | $1.20 |
| Output | $0.724 | $0.436 (best) | $6.00 |
| Cached input | — | — | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.624 | $0.281 (best) | $2.40 |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate | Same rate |
| Price source | Median of 21 providers | Median of 2 providers | Official Alibaba API |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 128,000 tokens | 128,000 tokens | 262,144 tokens (best) |
| Max output | 4,096 tokens | 16,384 tokens | 65,536 tokens (best) |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | No | Yes | No |
| PDFs | No | No | No |
| Audio | No | No | No |
| Video | No | No | No |
| Reasoning | No | No | No |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | No | Yes | No |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | Open | Open | Proprietary |
| API model ID | llama-3.3-70b-instruct | — | qwen3-max |
| API providers | 24 (best) | 2 | 16 |
| Released | Dec 6, 2024 | Mar 17, 2025 | Sep 23, 2025 |
| Knowledge cutoff | Dec 2023 | Jun 2024 | Apr 2025 |
What would a month cost?
Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.
- Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct$7.35
- Mistral Small 3.1 24B$3.16
- Qwen3 Max$24.00
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct, Mistral Small 3.1 24B or Qwen3 Max?
Mistral Small 3.1 24B is the better all-round choice, scoring 55/100 against Qwen3 Max (50) and Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct (46). It leads on price and inputs & features. Qwen3 Max wins on capability and context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
Which is cheaper, Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct, Mistral Small 3.1 24B or Qwen3 Max?
Mistral Small 3.1 24B is cheaper at $0.229 input / $0.436 output per million tokens (median across 2 API providers). Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct costs $0.59 input / $0.724 output per million tokens (median across 21 API providers; free on Llama); Qwen3 Max costs $1.20 input / $6.00 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.281 per million tokens for Mistral Small 3.1 24B versus $0.624 for Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct (2.2× as much) and $2.40 for Qwen3 Max (8.6× as much).
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
Qwen3 Max scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3 Max 142.4 (#91 of 148), Mistral Small 3.1 24B 127.5 (#132 of 148) and Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct 127.3 (#133 of 148). Their confidence ranges do not overlap (140.0–144.6 vs 122.6–129.4), so the gap is a real one. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen3 Max 72.6%, Mistral Small 3.1 24B 47.5%, Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct 47.4%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3 Max 73.3%, Mistral Small 3.1 24B 5.8%, Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct 5.1%.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct, Mistral Small 3.1 24B and Qwen3 Max yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen3 Max 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?
Qwen3 Max has the largest context window at 262,144 tokens, against 128,000 for Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct and 128,000 for Mistral Small 3.1 24B. Maximum output per response: Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct up to 4,096, Mistral Small 3.1 24B up to 16,384, Qwen3 Max up to 65,536 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct accepts text; Mistral Small 3.1 24B accepts text and images; Qwen3 Max accepts text. Mistral Small 3.1 24B handles the widest range of inputs.
Are any of these open source?
Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct and Mistral Small 3.1 24B publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Qwen3 Max is proprietary.
Which is newer?
Qwen3 Max is the newest, released Sep 23, 2025. Mistral Small 3.1 24B came out Mar 17, 2025; Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct came out Dec 6, 2024. Knowledge cutoff: Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct Dec 2023, Mistral Small 3.1 24B Jun 2024, Qwen3 Max 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.
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