Command R (08-2024) vs Mistral Small
A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.
- PriceTie
Both land near $0.60 / 1M output tokens, call it a wash on cost.
- Context windowTie
Both ship a 128K-token context window.
- BenchmarksTie
No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores.
- ModalitiesTie
Both handle text.
- OpennessTie
Both ship open weights, self-host either one.
It's a genuine coin-flip between Command R (08-2024) and Mistral Small: 0 category wins each, with the rest tied. Both land near $0.60 / 1M output tokens, call it a wash on cost. Both ship a 128K-token context window.
No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. Both target the same set of modalities (text), so the deciding factors are price, context, and raw quality. Both ship open weights, self-host either one.
Both shipped within roughly a month of each other in 2024, so they share the same generation of training data and tooling. Command R (08-2024) is usually picked for rag and multilingual workloads, while Mistral Small sees more deployments in cheapest llm and fastest llm. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.
Side-by-side specs
| Spec | Command R (08-2024) | Mistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Cohere | Mistral |
| Released | Aug 2024 | Sep 2024 |
| Modalities | text | text |
| Context window | 128K tokens | 128K tokens |
| Max output | , | , |
| Input · 1M | $0.15 / 1M tokens | $0.20 / 1M tokens |
| Output · 1M | $0.60 / 1M tokens | $0.60 / 1M tokens |
| Knowledge cutoff | , | , |
| Open weights | Yes (CC-BY-NC 4.0) | Yes (Apache-2.0) |
| API available | Yes | Yes |
Pricing at scale
What you'd actually pay at typical workloads. Numbers come from each model's published per-million-token rates.
- Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day$1.35 vs $1.50
- Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$13.50 vs $15.00
- RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$26.10 vs $33.60
Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: $1.35 vs $1.50 per month, model A comes out ahead. Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: $13.50 vs $15.00 per month, model A comes out ahead. RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: $26.10 vs $33.60 per month, model A comes out ahead.
Estimated spend for the listed models at your usage. Numbers are derived from each model's published per-million-token rates.
- Command R (08-2024)$0.045
- Mistral Small$0.050
Benchmarks compared
Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.
Command R (08-2024) fits when…
- Improved tool-use
- Strong multilingual
Mistral Small fits when…
- Apache-2.0 open-weight
- Fast and cheap
Consider Command R+ (08-2024)
Cohere's flagship optimized for RAG and tool use in enterprise settings.
Frequently asked
Is Command R (08-2024) or Mistral Small cheaper?
Both Command R (08-2024) and Mistral Small are priced equivalently at $0.60 / 1M tokens per million output tokens.Which has the larger context window?
Both Command R (08-2024) and Mistral Small ship a 128K-token context window.Is Command R (08-2024) or Mistral Small better for coding?
Both Command R (08-2024) and Mistral Small are competitive on coding benchmarks. See each model's individual spec page for HumanEval and SWE-bench scores where published. For an opinionated pick, consult our Best LLM for Coding ranking.Are either of these models open source?
Both ship with open weights. Command R (08-2024) is licensed under CC-BY-NC 4.0; Mistral Small under Apache-2.0.When were Command R (08-2024) and Mistral Small released?
Command R (08-2024) was released by Cohere on 2024-08-30. Mistral Small was released by Mistral on 2024-09-18.
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