Comparison · prices as of 2026-07-04 · re-verified 2026-08-18
Claude Opus 4.5 vs Mistral Medium 3.5
On price alone, Mistral Medium 3.5 (Mistral) runs about 70% cheaper than Claude Opus 4.5 for a typical chat workload (2K input + 500 output tokens, 1,000 requests/day). Whether that's the right trade depends on the capability gap — the breakdown below shows where each one wins.
Price per million tokens
| Spec | Claude Opus 4.5 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Input / MTok | $5 | $1.50 |
| Output / MTok | $25 | $7.50 |
| Context window | 200K | 128K |
| Max output | 64K | 32K |
| Class | frontier | workhorse |
Estimated monthly cost by workload
Same models, three realistic usage levels. The gap between them scales with volume, so the right pick can change as you grow.
| Workload | Claude Opus 4.5 | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Light — chatbot 0.5K in / 0.2K out · 200 req/day | $45.00 | $13.50 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
| Typical — assistant 2K in / 0.5K out · 1K req/day | $675 | $203 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
| Heavy — RAG / agent 8K in / 2K out · 5K req/day | $13,500 | $4,050 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
Which should you pick?
- Cheapest overall: Mistral Medium 3.5 — about 70% less per month on a typical assistant workload.
- Mistral Medium 3.5 is cheaper on both input and output, so it stays cheaper whether your workload is prompt-heavy or generation-heavy.
- Largest context window: Claude Opus 4.5 at 200K tokens vs 128K — the one to pick if you feed in whole documents or codebases.
- Different classes: Claude Opus 4.5 is a frontier model, Mistral Medium 3.5 is a workhorse model — expect Claude Opus 4.5 to be stronger on hard reasoning and Mistral Medium 3.5 to be faster and cheaper to run.
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Opus 4.5 or Mistral Medium 3.5 cheaper?
Mistral Medium 3.5 is cheaper — roughly 70% less per month on a typical assistant workload (2K input + 500 output tokens, 1,000 requests/day).
What do Claude Opus 4.5 and Mistral Medium 3.5 cost per million tokens?
Claude Opus 4.5 is $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output. Mistral Medium 3.5 is $1.50 input and $7.50 output. Prices are first-party API list rates as of 2026-07-04.
Which has the larger context window, Claude Opus 4.5 or Mistral Medium 3.5?
Claude Opus 4.5 does, at 200K tokens versus 128K for Mistral Medium 3.5.
When should I choose Claude Opus 4.5 over Mistral Medium 3.5?
Choose Claude Opus 4.5 when you need the extra capability of its frontier class; drop to Mistral Medium 3.5 when speed and cost matter more than peak quality.
Related comparisons
Sources: Anthropic pricing · Mistral pricing. Run your own numbers in the cost calculator.