Mistral Medium 3.5 vs o3 vs Qwen3 Max
o3 comes out ahead, 58 to 55 and 50 on our weighted score, though Qwen3 Max is 31% cheaper per token.
Mistral AIMistral Medium 3.5
55/100- ECI141.4
- Price$1.50 / $7.50
- Context262K
- Our pick
OpenAIo3
58/100- ECI146.9
- Price$2.00 / $8.00
- Context200K
Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen3 Max
50/100- ECI142.4
- Price$1.20 / $6.00
- Context262K
o3 is our pick
o3 is the better all-round choice, scoring 58/100 against Mistral Medium 3.5 (55) and Qwen3 Max (50). It leads on capability and inputs & features. Qwen3 Max wins on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
- Capabilityo3Capabilities Index (ECI): o3 146.9 · Qwen3 Max 142.4 · Mistral Medium 3.5 141.4
- Lowest priceQwen3 MaxQwen3 Max $2.40 · Mistral Medium 3.5 $3.00 · o3 $3.50 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
- Longest contextMistral Medium 3.5 and Qwen3 MaxMistral Medium 3.5 262,144 · Qwen3 Max 262,144 · o3 200,000 tokens
- Widest inputso3Mistral Medium 3.5: Text, Images · o3: Text, Images, PDFs · Qwen3 Max: Text
- Self-hostingMistral Medium 3.5Publishes downloadable weights
| Measure | Weight | Mistral Medium 3.5 | o3 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI) | 50% | 67 | 74 | 68 |
| Price | 25% | 27 | 24 | 32 |
| Inputs & features | 15% | 70 | 80 | 25 |
| Context window | 10% | 37 | 32 | 37 |
| Overall | 100% | 55/100 | 58/100 | 50/100 |
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Mistral Medium 3.5Mistral AI | o3OpenAI | Qwen3 MaxAlibaba (Qwen) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | 141.4 | 146.9 (best) | 142.4 |
| ECI rank | #95 of 148 | #63 of 148 (best) | #91 of 148 |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | — | 81.8% (best) | 72.6% |
| FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics | — | 33.3% (best) | 19.0% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | — | 84.4% (best) | 73.3% |
| SWE-bench VerifiedFixing real GitHub issues | — | 62.3% | — |
| SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions | — | 49.4% (best) | 48.8% |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $1.50 | $2.00 | $1.20 (best) |
| Output | $7.50 | $8.00 | $6.00 (best) |
| Cached input | $0.15 (best) | $0.50 | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $3.00 | $3.50 | $2.40 (best) |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate | Same rate |
| Price source | Official Mistral API | Official OpenAI API | Official Alibaba API |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 262,144 tokens (best) | 200,000 tokens | 262,144 tokens (best) |
| Max output | 262,144 tokens (best) | 100,000 tokens | 65,536 tokens |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | Yes | Yes | No |
| PDFs | No | Yes | No |
| Audio | No | No | No |
| Video | No | No | No |
| Reasoning | Yeshigh | Yeslow · medium · high | No |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | Yes | Yes | No |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | Open | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| API model ID | mistral-medium-2604 | o3 | qwen3-max |
| API providers | 12 | 18 (best) | 16 |
| Released | Apr 29, 2026 | Apr 16, 2025 | Sep 23, 2025 |
| Knowledge cutoff | — | May 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.
- Mistral Medium 3.5$30.00
- o3$36.00
- Qwen3 Max$24.00
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Mistral Medium 3.5, o3 or Qwen3 Max?
o3 is the better all-round choice, scoring 58/100 against Mistral Medium 3.5 (55) and Qwen3 Max (50). It leads on capability and inputs & features. Qwen3 Max wins on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Medium 3.5, o3 or Qwen3 Max?
Qwen3 Max is cheaper at $1.20 input / $6.00 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). Mistral Medium 3.5 costs $1.50 input / $7.50 output per million tokens (official Mistral API price); o3 costs $2.00 input / $8.00 output per million tokens (official OpenAI API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $2.40 per million tokens for Qwen3 Max versus $3.00 for Mistral Medium 3.5 (1.3× as much) and $3.50 for o3 (1.5× as much).
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
o3 scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): o3 146.9 (#63 of 148), Qwen3 Max 142.4 (#91 of 148) and Mistral Medium 3.5 141.4 (#95 of 148). Their confidence ranges do not overlap (144.9–148.6 vs 140.0–144.6), so the gap is a real one.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Mistral Medium 3.5 and Qwen3 Max yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, o3 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?
Mistral Medium 3.5 and Qwen3 Max have the largest context windows (262,144 and 262,144 tokens), against 200,000 for o3. Maximum output per response: Mistral Medium 3.5 up to 262,144, o3 up to 100,000, Qwen3 Max up to 65,536 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Mistral Medium 3.5 accepts text and images; o3 accepts text, images and PDFs; Qwen3 Max accepts text. o3 handles the widest range of inputs.
Are any of these open source?
Mistral Medium 3.5 publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; o3 and Qwen3 Max is proprietary.
Which is newer?
Mistral Medium 3.5 is the newest, released Apr 29, 2026. Qwen3 Max came out Sep 23, 2025; o3 came out Apr 16, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: o3 May 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.
