Model comparison

Mistral Small 3.1 vs Llama 3.3 70B

Input: $0.351 / 1M tokens
Output: $0.555 / 1M tokens
Context: 128K
Released: 2025-03-17

Input: $1.04
Output: $1.04
Context: 128K
Released: 2024-12-06

Short answer

Llama 3.3 70B scores higher on 4 of the 5 benchmarks both models report (the other leads on 1); Mistral Small 3.1 is cheaper on input tokens ($0.4 vs $1 per 1M, 3×).

Specs and pricing side by side

Spec	Mistral Small 3.1	Llama 3.3 70B
Maker	Mistral AI	Meta
Released	2025-03-17	2024-12-06
Context window	128K	128Ksame
Input price	$0.351 / 1M tokens	$1.04
Output price	$0.555 / 1M tokens	$1.04
Parameters	24B	70B
License	Apache 2.0	Llama 3.3 Community License Agreement
Weights	Open weights	Open weightssame
Modalities	Text, Vision	Text
Knowledge cutoff	October 2023	2023-12

Not published by either maker: max output.

Benchmarks both models report

Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.1	Llama 3.3 70B
MMLU	80.62%	86%
MMLU Pro	66.76%	68.9%
GPQA Diamond	45.96%	50.5%
MATH	69.3%	77%
HumanEval	88.41%	88.4%

Scores are as published by each maker or its cited source; harness, reasoning effort and date can differ between rows, so treat small gaps as ties. Sources are listed on each model page.

Which one should you pick?

Pick Mistral Small 3.1 if…

You care about HumanEval (it scores higher on 1 shared benchmark).
Cost matters: input tokens cost 3× less ($0.4 vs $1 per 1M).
You need Vision input, which Llama 3.3 70B lacks.
Your use case is: self-hosted multimodal assistants that need to read images, documents, and charts.

Pick Llama 3.3 70B if…

You care about MMLU, MMLU Pro, GPQA Diamond (it scores higher on 4 shared benchmarks).
Your use case is: cost-efficient self-hosted or API chat assistants needing frontier-class quality below 405B.

FAQ

Which is better, Mistral Small 3.1 or Llama 3.3 70B?

Llama 3.3 70B scores higher on 4 of the 5 benchmarks both models report (the other leads on 1); Mistral Small 3.1 is cheaper on input tokens ($0.4 vs $1 per 1M, 3×). The better pick depends on whether you value benchmark scores, price per token, context length or openness for your workload.

How much cheaper is Mistral Small 3.1?

Mistral Small 3.1: $0.351 / 1M tokens input, $0.555 / 1M tokens output. Llama 3.3 70B: $1.04 input, $1.04 output (list API prices as published by each maker).

What are the context windows of Mistral Small 3.1 and Llama 3.3 70B?

Mistral Small 3.1 offers 128K; Llama 3.3 70B offers 128K.

Is Mistral Small 3.1 newer than Llama 3.3 70B?

Mistral Small 3.1 was released 2025-03-17; Llama 3.3 70B was released 2024-12-06.