ZMIME
Comparison · 2 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Claude Opus 4.1 vs Mistral Medium 3

Mistral Medium 3 comes out ahead, 53 to 49 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.

  1. Anthropic

    Claude Opus 4.1

    Released Aug 5, 2025

    49/100
    • ECI144.1
    • Price$15.00 / $75.00
    • Context200K
    Full specs Remove Claude Opus 4.1
  2. Our pick

    Mistral AI

    Mistral Medium 3

    Released May 7, 2025

    53/100
    • ECI134.1
    • Price$0.40 / $2.00
    • Context131K
    Full specs Remove Mistral Medium 3

  3. Add a model

    Make it a three-way comparison.

01 — Verdict

Mistral Medium 3 is our pick

Mistral Medium 3 is the better all-round choice, scoring 53/100 against Claude Opus 4.1 (49). It leads on price. Claude Opus 4.1 wins on capability, inputs & features and context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityClaude Opus 4.1Capabilities Index (ECI): Claude Opus 4.1 144.1 · Mistral Medium 3 134.1
  • Lowest priceMistral Medium 3Mistral Medium 3 $0.80 · Claude Opus 4.1 $30.00 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextClaude Opus 4.1Claude Opus 4.1 200,000 · Mistral Medium 3 131,072 tokens
  • Widest inputsClaude Opus 4.1Claude Opus 4.1: Text, Images, PDFs · Mistral Medium 3: Text, Images
  • Self-hostingNo open weightsBoth are available only through APIs
How the score is built
MeasureWeightClaude Opus 4.1Mistral Medium 3
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%7158
Price25%054
Inputs & features15%7050
Context window10%3224
Overall100%49/10053/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

Claude Opus 4.1 vs Mistral Medium 3 specifications side by side
SpecificationClaude Opus 4.1AnthropicMistral Medium 3Mistral AI
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)144.1 (best)134.1
ECI rank#81 of 148 (best)#117 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions77.3% (best)59.5%
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics12.6%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics68.9% (best)32.2%
SWE-bench VerifiedFixing real GitHub issues73.4%—
Price per million tokens
Input$15.00$0.40 (best)
Output$75.00$2.00 (best)
Cached input——
Blended (3:1)$30.00$0.80 (best)
Long-context rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceMedian of 14 providersOfficial Mistral API
Limits
Context window200,000 tokens (best)131,072 tokens
Max output32,000 tokens131,072 tokens (best)
Inputs and features
TextYesYes
ImagesYesYes
PDFsYesNo
AudioNoNo
VideoNoNo
ReasoningYesNo
Tool callingYesYes
Structured outputNoNo
Availability
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
API model ID—mistral-medium-2505
API providers14 (best)5
ReleasedAug 5, 2025May 7, 2025
Knowledge cutoffMar 31, 2025May 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.

  • Claude Opus 4.1$300.00
  • Mistral Medium 3$8.00
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Claude Opus 4.1 or Mistral Medium 3?

Mistral Medium 3 is the better all-round choice, scoring 53/100 against Claude Opus 4.1 (49). It leads on price. Claude Opus 4.1 wins on capability, inputs & features and context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.1 or Mistral Medium 3?

Mistral Medium 3 is cheaper at $0.40 input / $2.00 output per million tokens (official Mistral API price). Claude Opus 4.1 costs $15.00 input / $75.00 output per million tokens (median across 14 API providers). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.80 per million tokens for Mistral Medium 3 versus $30.00 for Claude Opus 4.1 (38× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Claude Opus 4.1 scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Claude Opus 4.1 144.1 (#81 of 148) and Mistral Medium 3 134.1 (#117 of 148). Their confidence ranges do not overlap (141.6–146.0 vs 130.5–135.6), so the gap is a real one. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Claude Opus 4.1 77.3%, Mistral Medium 3 59.5%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Claude Opus 4.1 68.9%, Mistral Medium 3 32.2%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Mistral Medium 3 yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Claude Opus 4.1 leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. Both support tool calling for agent workflows.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Opus 4.1 has the largest context window at 200,000 tokens, against 131,072 for Mistral Medium 3. Maximum output per response: Claude Opus 4.1 up to 32,000, Mistral Medium 3 up to 131,072 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Claude Opus 4.1 accepts text, images and PDFs; Mistral Medium 3 accepts text and images. Claude Opus 4.1 handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

No. Claude Opus 4.1 and Mistral Medium 3 are proprietary and only available through APIs and apps.

Which is newer?

Claude Opus 4.1 is the newest, released Aug 5, 2025. Mistral Medium 3 came out May 7, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Claude Opus 4.1 Mar 31, 2025, Mistral Medium 3 May 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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