Mistral Medium 3.5 and what to use instead
For customer support replies, Mistral Medium 3.5 scores 40 and costs $5.25 per 1,000 replies. Here’s what beats it on price, on quality, or on privacy.
Cheaper at similar quality
At least 30% cheaper and within 5 points.
GLM-5.3-FlashZ.ai · open weightsAbout 92% cheaper per reply, and 27 points stronger.$0.43 per 1,000 replies · score 67Compare side by side →
Gemma 4 31B ITGoogle · open weightsAbout 91% cheaper per reply, and 12 points stronger.$0.46 per 1,000 replies · score 51Compare side by side →
MiniMax-M3MiniMax · open weightsAbout 82% cheaper per reply, and 9 points stronger.$0.93 per 1,000 replies · score 49Compare side by side →
Better at a similar price
At least 5 points stronger and no more than 20% dearer.
Gemini 3.8 FlashGoogleAbout 50% cheaper per reply, and 38 points stronger.$2.63 per 1,000 replies · score 78Compare side by side →
Qwen3.8 MaxAlibaba (Qwen)About 3% dearer per reply, and 32 points stronger.$5.40 per 1,000 replies · score 72Compare side by side →
Muse Spark 1.3MetaAbout 32% cheaper per reply, and 31 points stronger.$3.58 per 1,000 replies · score 71Compare side by side →
Open weights you can host
Ranked by value: quality for the money.
GLM-5.3-FlashZ.ai · open weightsAbout 92% cheaper per reply, and 27 points stronger.$0.43 per 1,000 replies · score 67Compare side by side →
Kimi K3Moonshot AI · open weightsAbout 100% dearer per reply, and 33 points stronger.$10.50 per 1,000 replies · score 73Compare side by side →
GLM-5.3Z.ai · open weightsAbout 26% cheaper per reply, and 27 points stronger.$3.86 per 1,000 replies · score 67Compare side by side →
Scores are provisional (Arena and Epoch AI) and prices are list prices. Rankings never take money into account. Thresholds are in the methodology.