GPT-3.5 Turbo vs Mistral Small
Comparing GPT-3.5 Turbo and Mistral Small across benchmarks, pricing, and capabilities.
OpenAI · Mistral AI · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
GPT-3.5 Turbo and Mistral Small trade strengths across price, capabilities, and technical limits. The better choice depends on the workload.
On price, Mistral Small is roughly 2.5x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.
Mistral Small also accepts a larger context window (32,768 input tokens), making it the stronger choice for long documents and large codebases.
Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose GPT-3.5 Turbo
- you want predictable pricing at $0.50/M input and $1.50/M output
Choose Mistral Small
- cost matters — it's about 2.5x cheaper per token
- you process long inputs — it offers a 32,768 token context window
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Sep 2024
- you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Individual benchmarks
8 reported for GPT-3.5 Turbo · 0 for Mistral Small
GPT-3.5 Turbo and Mistral Smalldon't have any common benchmark datasets to compare. They may have been evaluated on different testing suites.
Human preference
Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores
Pricing Analysis
Price comparison per million tokens
For input processing, GPT-3.5 Turbo ($0.50/1M tokens) is 2.5x more expensive than Mistral Small ($0.20/1M tokens).
For output processing, GPT-3.5 Turbo ($1.50/1M tokens) is 2.5x more expensive than Mistral Small ($0.60/1M tokens).
In conclusion, GPT-3.5 Turbo is more expensive than Mistral Small.*
* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Mistral Small accepts 32,768 input tokens compared to GPT-3.5 Turbo's 16,385 tokens. Mistral Small can generate longer responses up to 32,768 tokens, while GPT-3.5 Turbo is limited to 4,096 tokens.
License
Usage and distribution terms
GPT-3.5 Turbo is licensed under a proprietary license, while Mistral Small uses Mistral Research License.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
Proprietary
Closed source
Mistral Research License
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
GPT-3.5 Turbo was released on 2023-03-21, while Mistral Small was released on 2024-09-17.
Mistral Small is 18 months newer than GPT-3.5 Turbo.
Mar 21, 2023
3.5 years ago
Sep 17, 2024
2.0 years ago
1.5yr newerKnowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
GPT-3.5 Turbo has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2021-09-30, while Mistral Small's cutoff date is not specified.
We can confirm GPT-3.5 Turbo's training data extends to 2021-09-30, but cannot make a direct comparison without Mistral Small's cutoff date.
Sep 2021
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Provider Availability
GPT-3.5 Turbo is available from Azure, OpenAI. Mistral Small is available from Mistral AI.
GPT-3.5 Turbo
Mistral Small
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against GPT-3.5 Turbo and Mistral Small side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about GPT-3.5 Turbo vs Mistral Small.