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Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Claude Sonnet 4 vs Qwen3 Max

Mistral Medium 3.5 comes out ahead, 55 to 51 and 50 on our weighted score, though Qwen3 Max is 20% cheaper per token.

  1. Our pick

    Mistral AI

    Mistral Medium 3.5

    Released Apr 29, 2026

    55/100
    • ECI141.4
    • Price$1.50 / $7.50
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Mistral Medium 3.5

  2. Anthropic

    Claude Sonnet 4

    Released May 22, 2025

    51/100
    • ECI141.7
    • Price$3.00 / $15.00
    • Context200K
    Full specs Remove Claude Sonnet 4

  3. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3 Max

    Released Sep 23, 2025

    50/100
    • ECI142.4
    • Price$1.20 / $6.00
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3 Max
01 — Verdict

Mistral Medium 3.5 is our pick

Mistral Medium 3.5 is the better all-round choice, scoring 55/100 against Claude Sonnet 4 (51) and Qwen3 Max (50). Qwen3 Max wins on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityQwen3 MaxCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3 Max 142.4 · Claude Sonnet 4 141.7 · Mistral Medium 3.5 141.4
  • Lowest priceQwen3 MaxQwen3 Max $2.40 · Mistral Medium 3.5 $3.00 · Claude Sonnet 4 $6.00 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextMistral Medium 3.5 and Qwen3 MaxMistral Medium 3.5 262,144 · Qwen3 Max 262,144 · Claude Sonnet 4 200,000 tokens
  • Widest inputsClaude Sonnet 4Mistral Medium 3.5: Text, Images · Claude Sonnet 4: Text, Images, PDFs · Qwen3 Max: Text
  • Self-hostingMistral Medium 3.5Publishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightMistral Medium 3.5Claude Sonnet 4Qwen3 Max
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%676868
Price25%271332
Inputs & features15%707025
Context window10%373237
Overall100%55/10051/10050/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.

Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Claude Sonnet 4 vs Qwen3 Max specifications side by side
SpecificationMistral Medium 3.5Mistral AIClaude Sonnet 4AnthropicQwen3 MaxAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)141.4141.7142.4 (best)
ECI rank#95 of 148#94 of 148#91 of 148 (best)
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions—79.2% (best)72.6%
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics——19.0%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics—71.1%73.3% (best)
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions——48.8%
Price per million tokens
Input$1.50$3.00$1.20 (best)
Output$7.50$15.00$6.00 (best)
Cached input$0.15——
Blended (3:1)$3.00$6.00$2.40 (best)
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Mistral APIMedian of 9 providersOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window262,144 tokens (best)200,000 tokens262,144 tokens (best)
Max output262,144 tokens (best)64,000 tokens65,536 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesYesYesNo
PDFsNoYesNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoNoNoNo
ReasoningYeshighYesNo
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputYesNoNo
Availability
WeightsOpenProprietaryProprietary
API model IDmistral-medium-2604—qwen3-max
API providers12916 (best)
ReleasedApr 29, 2026May 22, 2025Sep 23, 2025
Knowledge cutoff—Mar 31, 2025Apr 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.

  • Mistral Medium 3.5$30.00
  • Claude Sonnet 4$60.00
  • Qwen3 Max$24.00
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Mistral Medium 3.5, Claude Sonnet 4 or Qwen3 Max?

Mistral Medium 3.5 is the better all-round choice, scoring 55/100 against Claude Sonnet 4 (51) and Qwen3 Max (50). 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, Claude Sonnet 4 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); Claude Sonnet 4 costs $3.00 input / $15.00 output per million tokens (median across 9 API providers). 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 $6.00 for Claude Sonnet 4 (2.5× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen3 Max scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3 Max 142.4 (#91 of 148), Claude Sonnet 4 141.7 (#94 of 148) and Mistral Medium 3.5 141.4 (#95 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (140.0–144.6 vs 139.2–142.9), so treat the gap as small.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Mistral Medium 3.5, Claude Sonnet 4 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?

Mistral Medium 3.5 and Qwen3 Max have the largest context windows (262,144 and 262,144 tokens), against 200,000 for Claude Sonnet 4. Maximum output per response: Mistral Medium 3.5 up to 262,144, Claude Sonnet 4 up to 64,000, Qwen3 Max up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Mistral Medium 3.5 accepts text and images; Claude Sonnet 4 accepts text, images and PDFs; Qwen3 Max accepts text. Claude Sonnet 4 handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Mistral Medium 3.5 publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Claude Sonnet 4 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; Claude Sonnet 4 came out May 22, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Claude Sonnet 4 Mar 31, 2025, 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.

05 — Keep comparing

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