Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Claude Sonnet 5
The European option against Anthropic's workhorse, for buyers who care where their data is processed. Both list prices from the makers’ own pages, and what three everyday jobs cost on each.
US dollars, standard rate, shortest context band. Price only: this page does not rank quality.
- Mistral Medium 3.5
- $7.50
- Claude Sonnet 5
- $10.00
- Mistral Medium 3.5, per M tokens
- $1.50 / $7.50
- Claude Sonnet 5, per M tokens
- $2 / $10
3,000 tokens in and 400 out each, at list price.
Per million tokens, Mistral Medium 3.5 costs $1.50 in and $7.50 out; Claude Sonnet 5 costs $2 in and $10 out. 1,000 support replies cost $10.00 on Claude Sonnet 5 and $7.50 on Mistral Medium 3.5, so Claude Sonnet 5 costs 33% more. Mistral Medium 3.5 reads up to 256K tokens at once, Claude Sonnet 5 up to 1M.
Side by side
Each maker’s published rate for its standard tier. Cached input is what a repeated prompt prefix costs once the provider has stored it.
| Fact | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Mistral | Anthropic |
| Tier | Flagships | Workhorses |
| Input, per M tokens | $1.50 | $2.00 |
| Output, per M tokens | $7.50 | $10.00 |
| Cached input | Not published | $0.20 |
| Context window | 256K | 1M |
| Released | 28 Apr 2026 | 30 Jun 2026 |
| Weights | Open | Closed |
What a job costs on each
1,000 runs of each job at the two list prices. The gap moves from job to job because the models price input, output and cached context differently.
| Job | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Claude Sonnet 5 | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Support reply3,000 in, 400 out. | $7.50 | $10.00 | Mistral Medium 3.5, 25% less |
| Document summary25,000 in, 1,000 out. | $45.00 | $60.00 | Mistral Medium 3.5, 25% less |
| Agent task80,000 in (70,000 cached), 3,000 out. | $143 | $64.00 | Claude Sonnet 5, 55% less |
The token counts are ours, chosen to look like real work; the prices are the makers’. A model with no published cache price bills the agent task’s repeated context at its full input rate.
The small print
What each base rate leaves out, from the makers’ own pages: surcharges, discounts, promotions and cache pricing.
- Mistral Medium 3.5
- Cached price not published (the pricing FAQ says only 'up to 90%' off). Batch 50% off per https://mistral.ai/pricing. Open weights under a modified MIT license. Mistral’s pricing page
- Claude Sonnet 5
- The introductory $2 / $10 price became the standard price; the planned rise to $3 / $15 was cancelled. Cache write $2.50 (5 min) or $4 (1 h). Batch API 50% off. US-only inference (inference_geo) bills 1.1x. Full context window billed at standard rates. Anthropic’s pricing page
Other comparisons
Every head to head on the list that involves Mistral Medium 3.5 or Claude Sonnet 5.
Run both for a quarter of list price
AIGROW API credit covers Mistral Medium 3.5 and Claude Sonnet 5 and is metered at the list prices above: $25 buys $100 of usage.
Prices checked 22 September 2026