Mistral Small 3 API pricing
Mistral · Budget price tier · Apache 2.0 · released 2025-01. Prices in USD per 1 million tokens. Data snapshot: 2026-11-12.
Deprecated. The model maker has announced retirement of this model's API · shutdown 2025-11-30 · suggested replacement: Mistral Small 4. It still carries a price because hosts still serve it; treat it as a model to migrate off, not one to start on.
A support ticket workload of 100K requests a month costs $11.50 on Mistral Small 3; the next cheaper model in the Budget price tier for this workload, Qwen3.7 Flash, does it for $11.00. Mistral Small 3 has held the same list price since 2026-08-15 and is the 8th cheapest of 160 models in the Budget price tier. Only one host, DeepInfra, sells it, so there is no second price to shop. Its maker has announced its retirement, so it is a model to migrate off rather than start on.
- Input: $0.05 per 1M tokens
- Output: $0.08 per 1M tokens
- Batch API (in/out): Not published
- Prompt-cache read: Not published
- Context window: 33K tokens
- Arena ELO: 1234 as of 2026-11-08
Market position
On blended price ($0.071 per 1M tokens at 30% input, 70% output) it is cheaper than 96% of models in the Budget price tier: 8th cheapest of 160. Across every price tier it is cheaper than 98% of priced text models in the catalogue: 8th cheapest of 303. Its Arena ELO of 1234 ranks 149th of the 160 models that carry one, above 7% of them.
Licence, size and capabilities
Mistral Small 3 is open source: its weights are published under Apache 2.0, an OSI-approved licence with no field-of-use limit, so it can be self-hosted as well as bought by the token. Its published size is 24B parameters. Listed capabilities: Text. Filling its 33K context window once costs $0.00165 in input tokens at list price.
Pricing by host
A host is a company that runs the model and sells it by the token: the model maker, a cloud platform like Amazon Bedrock, Azure or Vertex, or an independent host. One model, several hosts, and often several prices. This model is sold by 1 host. The price we quote elsewhere on this page is marked. We quote one host's rate so that models stay comparable; it is not a recommendation to buy there.
DeepInfra is the only host with a published rate, $0.05 input / $0.08 output per 1M tokens, which is the price we quote. It serves a quantized fp8 build, which is not the same product as the full-precision model.
| Host | Input $/1M | Output $/1M | Precision |
|---|---|---|---|
| DeepInfra (price we quote) | $0.05 | $0.08 | fp8 |
List prices as published on 2026-11-12, via OpenRouter. Negotiated rates, committed-use discounts and provisioned capacity are not shown.
Monthly cost at 100K requests, by business use case
From the after-discounts figure (prompt caching on the cached input share, batch API for async workloads, only where Mistral publishes those rates), which assumes you implement both, to the list price. One figure means no discount is published.
| Use case | Tokens (in/out) | Monthly (after discounts – list) |
|---|---|---|
| Support Ticket | 1,500 / 500 | $12 |
| Knowledge Q&A | 2,000 / 800 | $16 |
| Meeting Summary | 10,000 / 1,200 | $60 |
| Marketing Content | 2,500 / 1,800 | $27 |
| Coding Task | 3,000 / 2,000 | $31 |
| Invoice Processing | 1,500 / 600 | $12 |
| Call Summary | 2,000 / 700 | $16 |
| Agent Workflow | 6,000 / 3,000 | $54 |
Price history
Mistral Small 3 has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $0.05 input / $0.08 output per 1M tokens. No list price change since tracking began on 2026-08-15. Last checked against the 2026-11-12 snapshot.
Alternatives to Mistral Small 3
None of the 4 comparable models below costs less than Mistral Small 3 on the blended price.
- Next cheaper model in the Budget price tier: GLM 5.3 Flash (Zhipu) at $0.0668 blended, 6% less.
- Next more expensive: Nex-N2.5-Mini (nex-agi) at $0.0775 blended, 9% more.
The nearest models in the Budget price tier on Arena ELO, each with its blended price and score difference against Mistral Small 3.
- Gemma 2 27B (Google): $0.65 in / $0.65 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1231 (815% more expensive, 3 ELO points lower)
- Qwen2.5 Coder 32B Instruct (Alibaba): $0.66 in / $1.00 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1230 (1165% more expensive, 4 ELO points lower)
- Nova Lite 1.0 (Amazon): $0.06 in / $0.24 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1229 (162% more expensive, 5 ELO points lower)
- Phi 4 (Microsoft): $0.07 in / $0.14 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1217 (68% more expensive, 17 ELO points lower)
- Cheapest within 15 Arena points: Mistral Small 3 is itself the cheapest of the 5 models scoring within 15 points of its ELO.
- Highest Arena ELO within 20% of this price: GLM 5.3 Flash (Zhipu), 6% cheaper, 237 ELO points higher, out of 3 models in that price band.
Other models from Mistral
The 8 nearest to Mistral Small 3 in price, of 19 other Mistral models in the catalogue. Prices per 1M tokens, input then output.
- Mistral Nemo: $0.029 / $0.03
- Ministral 3 3B 2512: $0.10 / $0.10
- Ministral 3 8B 2512: $0.15 / $0.15
- Ministral 3 14B 2512: $0.20 / $0.20
- Mistral Small 3.2 24B: $0.10 / $0.30
- Voxtral Small 24B 2507: $0.10 / $0.30
- Mistral Small 4: $0.15 / $0.60
- Saba: $0.20 / $0.60
All 20 Mistral models and prices
Common questions about Mistral Small 3 pricing
- How much does Mistral Small 3 cost?
- Mistral Small 3 costs $0.05 per 1M input tokens and $0.08 per 1M output tokens at DeepInfra, the host whose rate we quote. DeepInfra serves a quantized fp8 build, which is not the same product as the full-precision model. Prices as listed on 2026-11-12.
- Which host is cheapest for Mistral Small 3?
- DeepInfra is the only host with a published rate, $0.05 input / $0.08 output per 1M tokens, which is the price we quote. It serves a quantized fp8 build, which is not the same product as the full-precision model. Host rates as listed on 2026-11-12.
- Does Mistral Small 3 offer batch or cached pricing?
- No. Neither a batch rate nor a prompt-cache rate is published for Mistral Small 3 as of 2026-11-12.
- What would Mistral Small 3 cost per month?
- With the Support Ticket profile (1,500 input and 500 output tokens per request), 100,000 requests a month cost about $12 on Mistral Small 3 at the list price quoted on 2026-11-12.
- Can Mistral Small 3 be self-hosted?
- Yes. Mistral Small 3 is open source: its weights are published under Apache 2.0, an OSI-approved licence with no field-of-use limit, so it can be self-hosted as well as bought by the token.
- Has the price of Mistral Small 3 changed?
- Mistral Small 3 has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $0.05 input / $0.08 output per 1M tokens. No list price change since tracking began on 2026-08-15. Last checked against the 2026-11-12 snapshot.
Its weights are published, which changes what you may run yourself: the cost gap between open weights and proprietary APIs.
These are list prices. Your real cost also depends on caching and batching, negotiated discounts, marketplace agreements, and the contracts you already have. OptimNow audits exactly that.
Build the business case · Get a FinOps review
LLM pricing · Models by maker · Cloud compute pricing · Compare models · Price barometer · FinOps guides · API and MCP server