Ministral 3B vs Claude Haiku 3 vs Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct
Too close to call on our weighted score (Ministral 3B 49, Claude Haiku 3 47, Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 46). The right pick depends on what you value most.
Mistral AIMinistral 3B
49/100- ECI118.1
- Price$0.10 / $0.10
- Context128K
AnthropicClaude Haiku 3
47/100- ECI118.4
- Price$0.25 / $1.25
- Context200K
MetaLlama-3.1-8B-Instruct
46/100- ECI116.6
- Price$0.152 / $0.167
- Context128K
Too close to call
It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 2 points (Ministral 3B 49/100, Claude Haiku 3 47/100, Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 46/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Claude Haiku 3 for raw capability and Ministral 3B on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
- CapabilityClaude Haiku 3Capabilities Index (ECI): Claude Haiku 3 118.4 · Ministral 3B 118.1 · Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 116.6
- Lowest priceMinistral 3BMinistral 3B $0.10 · Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct $0.156 · Claude Haiku 3 $0.50 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
- Longest contextClaude Haiku 3Claude Haiku 3 200,000 · Ministral 3B 128,000 · Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 128,000 tokens
- Widest inputsClaude Haiku 3Ministral 3B: Text · Claude Haiku 3: Text, Images, PDFs · Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct: Text
- Self-hostingMinistral 3B and Llama-3.1-8B-InstructPublishes downloadable weights
| Measure | Weight | Ministral 3B | Claude Haiku 3 | Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI) | 50% | 38 | 38 | 36 |
| Price | 25% | 97 | 64 | 88 |
| Inputs & features | 15% | 25 | 60 | 25 |
| Context window | 10% | 24 | 32 | 24 |
| Overall | 100% | 49/100 | 47/100 | 46/100 |
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Ministral 3BMistral AI | Claude Haiku 3Anthropic | Llama-3.1-8B-InstructMeta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | 118.1 | 118.4 (best) | 116.6 |
| ECI rank | #144 of 148 | #143 of 148 (best) | #145 of 148 |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | 25.3% | 36.3% (best) | 27.0% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | — | 1.8% (best) | 1.7% |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $0.10 (best) | $0.25 | $0.152 |
| Output | $0.10 (best) | $1.25 | $0.167 |
| Cached input | — | — | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.10 (best) | $0.50 | $0.156 |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate | Same rate |
| Price source | Median of 1 providers | Median of 2 providers | Median of 9 providers |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 128,000 tokens | 200,000 tokens (best) | 128,000 tokens |
| Max output | 8,192 tokens (best) | 4,096 tokens | 4,096 tokens |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | No | Yes | No |
| PDFs | No | Yes | No |
| Audio | No | No | No |
| Video | No | No | No |
| Reasoning | No | No | No |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | No | No | No |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | Open | Proprietary | Open |
| API model ID | — | — | — |
| API providers | 1 | 2 | 9 (best) |
| Released | Oct 16, 2024 | Mar 13, 2024 | Jul 23, 2024 |
| Knowledge cutoff | Mar 2024 | Aug 31, 2023 | Dec 2023 |
What would a month cost?
Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.
- Ministral 3B$1.20
- Claude Haiku 3$5.00
- Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct$1.85
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Ministral 3B, Claude Haiku 3 or Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct?
It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 2 points (Ministral 3B 49/100, Claude Haiku 3 47/100, Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 46/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Claude Haiku 3 for raw capability and Ministral 3B on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
Which is cheaper, Ministral 3B, Claude Haiku 3 or Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct?
Ministral 3B is cheaper at $0.10 input / $0.10 output per million tokens (median across 1 API provider). Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct costs $0.152 input / $0.167 output per million tokens (median across 9 API providers); Claude Haiku 3 costs $0.25 input / $1.25 output per million tokens (median across 2 API providers). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.10 per million tokens for Ministral 3B versus $0.156 for Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct (1.6× as much) and $0.50 for Claude Haiku 3 (5× as much).
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
Claude Haiku 3 scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Claude Haiku 3 118.4 (#143 of 148), Ministral 3B 118.1 (#144 of 148) and Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 116.6 (#145 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (110.5–121.2 vs 107.4–121.8), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Claude Haiku 3 36.3%, Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 27.0%, Ministral 3B 25.3%.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Ministral 3B, Claude Haiku 3 and Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Claude Haiku 3 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?
Claude Haiku 3 has the largest context window at 200,000 tokens, against 128,000 for Ministral 3B and 128,000 for Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct. Maximum output per response: Ministral 3B up to 8,192, Claude Haiku 3 up to 4,096, Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct up to 4,096 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Ministral 3B accepts text; Claude Haiku 3 accepts text, images and PDFs; Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct accepts text. Claude Haiku 3 handles the widest range of inputs.
Are any of these open source?
Ministral 3B and Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Claude Haiku 3 is proprietary.
Which is newer?
Ministral 3B is the newest, released Oct 16, 2024. Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct came out Jul 23, 2024; Claude Haiku 3 came out Mar 13, 2024. Knowledge cutoff: Ministral 3B Mar 2024, Claude Haiku 3 Aug 31, 2023, Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct Dec 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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