---
title: "Is Mistral Small 3 still undominated? · Undominated.ai"
canonical: https://undominated.ai/check/mistralai__mistral-small-24b-instruct-2501/
description: "Mistral Small 3: whether it is still undominated. If anything in this catalogue is both better and cheaper, it is named, as of Sep 23, 2026. Unrated stays unrated."
---

# Is Mistral Small 3 still undominated? · Undominated.ai

> Mistral Small 3: whether it is still undominated. If anything in this catalogue is both better and cheaper, it is named, as of Sep 23, 2026. Unrated stays unrated.

# Is Mistral Small 3 a good deal?

Whether anything in this catalogue beats Mistral Small 3 on both quality and price, and what you give up if it does. A computation on the current catalogue, not an opinion.

13 undominated of 136 · Sep 23, 2026

 [1 · Choose & set workload](#check-input)[2 · Read verdict](#check-verdict)[3 · Inspect alternatives](#check-options)

As of Sep 23, 2026, Mistral Small 3 is dominated for Balanced on LMArena. gpt-oss-20b scores 53.8 higher and costs 37% less, with a covering envelope. 13 of 136 rated, priced standard models are undominated.

[Inspect model evidence](/models/mistralai__mistral-small-24b-instruct-2501/) [Compare differences & requirements](/compare/?models=mistralai%2Fmistral-small-24b-instruct-2501%2Copenai%2Fgpt-oss-20b)

 Current model

Mistral Small 3

 Balanced

3 tokens in per 1 out

 Balanced Summarise Chat Code gen Agentic
 Monthly spend (USD) Used only to say how many months a named switching cost would take to earn back. Leave blank to skip. Switching cost (USD)

gpt-oss-20b is both better and cheaper than Mistral Small 3: 53.8 points higher on LMArena and 37% less per million tokens, $0.02 cheaper at this mix.

 [Mistral Small 3](https://undominated.ai/models/mistralai__mistral-small-24b-instruct-2501/)

LMArena Elo · higher is better

Scale starts at 1040 Elo

 **

1233.5

Effective $/M · Balanced · lower is better

 **

$0.058/M

 [gpt-oss-20b](https://undominated.ai/models/openai__gpt-oss-20b/)

LMArena Elo · higher is better

Scale starts at 1040 Elo

 **

1287.3

Effective $/M · Balanced · lower is better

 **

$0.036/M

Mistral Small 3 takes text, returns up to 16,384 tokens from a 32,768-token context, and is listed by 1 seller.

Compared against 136 rated, priced models on this lens: 1 model dominates it and gives up nothing, none does so with a trade-off. Mistral Small 3 scores 1233.5 at $0.06 per million tokens for this mix.

## Envelope-safe replacements

Each row scores at least as high, costs no more, and covers this model’s context, output, modalities, tools, and reasoning. A cheaper narrower model is not listed here.

| Model | LMArena | Effective $/M | You save |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [gpt-oss-20b](/models/openai__gpt-oss-20b/) | 1287.3 +53.8 | $0.036/M | 37% |

 136 rated, priced standard models. Chartreuse is the frontier. Cobalt is the model you named, when it is not on the staircase.

Copy watch URL [Open the frontier](/frontier/)

The link keeps the model and mix, using the current catalogue. Monthly spend and switching cost stay in this browser tab and are left out of the link.

## Saved decision references

Save the model, workload, catalogue date and capability-preservation rule in this browser. Spend, switching cost and bill contents are not saved. No account or notifications.

Constraint: replacements must preserve the model’s capabilities; any losses remain named trade-offs.

Historical decisions cannot be fully replayed from saved references: past prices, scores and capability evidence are not stored.

 Save this reference

## Continue your investigation

 - [Build a shortlist](/compare/)
- [Inspect alternatives](/alternatives/)
- [Check billing conditions](/traps/)
- [Read model evidence](/models/)