Mistral Small vs Amazon Nova Pro
A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.
Updated
Mistral Small specs · Amazon Nova Pro specs- PriceMistral Small
Mistral Small is roughly 5.3× cheaper on output tokens ($0.60 vs $3.20 per 1M).
- Context windowAmazon Nova Pro
Amazon Nova Pro accepts 300K tokens vs 128K, 2.3× 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.
- ModalitiesAmazon Nova Pro
Amazon Nova Pro supports 3 modalities (text, vision, video) vs 1 for Mistral Small.
- OpennessMistral Small
Mistral Small ships open weights (Apache-2.0); Amazon Nova Pro is API-only.
It's a genuine coin-flip between Mistral Small and Amazon Nova Pro: 2 category wins each, with the rest tied. Mistral Small is roughly 5.3× cheaper on output tokens ($0.60 vs $3.20 per 1M). Amazon Nova Pro accepts 300K tokens vs 128K, 2.3× 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, Mistral Small handles text while Amazon Nova Pro handles text, vision, video, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Mistral Small ships open weights (Apache-2.0); Amazon Nova Pro is API-only.
Amazon Nova Pro is the newer of the two, released 3 months after Mistral Small, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Mistral Small is usually picked for cheapest llm and fastest llm workloads, while Amazon Nova Pro sees more deployments in enterprise llm and rag. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.
Side-by-side specs
| Spec | Mistral Small | Amazon Nova Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral | Other |
| Released | Sep 2024 | Dec 2024 |
| Modalities | text | text, vision, video |
| Context window | 128K tokens | 300K tokens |
| Max output | , | , |
| Input · 1M | $0.20 / 1M tokens | $0.80 / 1M tokens |
| Output · 1M | $0.60 / 1M tokens | $3.20 / 1M tokens |
| Knowledge cutoff | , | , |
| Open weights | Yes (Apache-2.0) | No |
| 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$1.50 vs $7.20
- Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$15.00 vs $72.00
- RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$33.60 vs $139
Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: $1.50 vs $7.20 per month, model A comes out ahead. Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: $15.00 vs $72.00 per month, model A comes out ahead. RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: $33.60 vs $139 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.
- Mistral Small$0.050
- Amazon Nova Pro$0.240
Benchmarks compared
Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.
Mistral Small fits when…
- Apache-2.0 open-weight
- Fast and cheap
- Cost-sensitive workloads, 5.3× cheaper than Amazon Nova Pro on output tokens.
- Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (Apache-2.0).
Amazon Nova Pro fits when…
- AWS-native
- Long context
- Multimodal incl. video
- Long-context tasks, handles 300K tokens vs 128K for Mistral Small.
- Multimodal needs covering vision, video.
Consider Mistral Large 2
Mistral's flagship API model, strong on code and reasoning, EU-friendly hosting.
Frequently asked
Is Mistral Small or Amazon Nova Pro cheaper?
Mistral Small is cheaper at $0.60 / 1M tokens per million output tokens, vs $3.20 / 1M tokens for Amazon Nova Pro.Which has the larger context window?
Amazon Nova Pro accepts 300K tokens vs 128K for Mistral Small.Is Mistral Small or Amazon Nova Pro better for coding?
Both Mistral Small and Amazon Nova Pro 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). Amazon Nova Pro is API-only.When were Mistral Small and Amazon Nova Pro released?
Mistral Small was released by Mistral on 2024-09-18. Amazon Nova Pro was released by Other on 2024-12-03.
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