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Gemini 3 Pro 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.

Updated

Gemini 3 Pro specs · Mistral Small specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceMistral Small

    Mistral Small publishes pricing ($0.60 / 1M output tokens) while Gemini 3 Pro does not.

  • Context windowGemini 3 Pro

    Gemini 3 Pro accepts 1.0M tokens vs 128K, 8.2× the room for long documents and codebases.

  • BenchmarksTie

    No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores.

  • ModalitiesGemini 3 Pro

    Gemini 3 Pro supports 4 modalities (text, vision, audio, video) vs 1 for Mistral Small.

  • OpennessMistral Small

    Mistral Small ships open weights (Apache-2.0); Gemini 3 Pro is API-only.

It's a genuine coin-flip between Gemini 3 Pro and Mistral Small: 2 category wins each, with the rest tied. Mistral Small publishes pricing ($0.60 / 1M output tokens) while Gemini 3 Pro does not. Gemini 3 Pro accepts 1.0M tokens vs 128K, 8.2× the room for long documents and codebases.

No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. They differ in modality coverage, Gemini 3 Pro handles text, vision, audio, video while Mistral Small handles text, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Mistral Small ships open weights (Apache-2.0); Gemini 3 Pro is API-only.

Gemini 3 Pro is the newer of the two, released 15 months after Mistral Small, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Gemini 3 Pro is usually picked for long context and rag 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

SpecGemini 3 ProMistral Small
ProviderGoogleMistral
ReleasedDec 2025Sep 2024
Modalitiestext, vision, audio, videotext
Context window1.0M tokens128K tokens
Max output65.5K tokens,
Input · 1MPricing not published$0.20 / 1M tokens
Output · 1MPricing not published$0.60 / 1M tokens
Knowledge cutoff2025-01,
Open weightsNoYes (Apache-2.0)
API availableYesYes

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, vs $1.50
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day, vs $15.00
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day, vs $33.60

Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates).

Price calculator

Estimated spend for the listed models at your usage. Numbers are derived from each model's published per-million-token rates.

  • Gemini 3 ProPricing unavailable
  • 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.

Gemini 3 ProMistral Small
  • MMLU91.8
  • HumanEval95.4
  • GPQA91.9
Pick Gemini 3 Pro if

Gemini 3 Pro fits when…

  • Massive 1M-token context window
  • State-of-the-art vision and document understanding
  • Strong reasoning at competitive price
  • Long-context tasks, handles 1.0M tokens vs 128K for Mistral Small.
  • Multimodal needs covering vision, audio, video.
Pick Mistral Small if

Mistral Small fits when…

  • Apache-2.0 open-weight
  • Fast and cheap
  • Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (Apache-2.0).
Don't want either?

Consider Gemini 3 Flash

Google's high-speed, low-cost mid-tier with the same massive context window, popular for high-volume RAG.

See Gemini 3 Flash specsGemini 3 Pro vs Gemini 3 FlashMistral Small vs Gemini 3 Flash

Frequently asked

  • Is Gemini 3 Pro or Mistral Small cheaper?
    Per-token pricing isn't published for at least one of these models, check each model's spec page for current rates.
  • Which has the larger context window?
    Gemini 3 Pro accepts 1.0M tokens vs 128K for Mistral Small.
  • Is Gemini 3 Pro or Mistral Small better for coding?
    Both Gemini 3 Pro 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?
    Mistral Small ships open weights (Apache-2.0). Gemini 3 Pro is API-only.
  • When were Gemini 3 Pro and Mistral Small released?
    Gemini 3 Pro was released by Google on 2025-12-09. Mistral Small was released by Mistral on 2024-09-18.
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