Model comparison
Claude Opus 5 vs Mistral Small 4
Compare Claude Opus 5 vs Mistral Small 4 API pricing: input/output token costs, cache pricing, context windows, workload estimates, and routing fit.
Claude Opus 5
anthropic · claude-opus-5
- Input
- $5
- Output
- $25
- Context
- 1M
Mistral Small 4
mistral · mistral/mistral-small-2603
- Input
- $0.15
- Output
- $0.6
- Context
- 256K
Quick take
Mistral Small 4 has the lower input price at $0.15 per 1M input tokens. Mistral Small 4 is cheaper for the example blended workload below. Claude Opus 5 has the larger context window at 1M tokens.
Choose Claude Opus 5 if...
- Claude Opus 5 is safer for long documents, repository analysis, and RAG prompts because it has the larger context window.
- Claude Opus 5 gives more room for long generated answers, reports, or code output.
Choose Mistral Small 4 if...
- Mistral Small 4 is the better default for cost-sensitive traffic and repeated high-volume calls.
Example workload cost
Estimates use input tokens plus 20% output tokens. They exclude provider discounts, cache hits, and tool/search surcharges.
| Workload | Claude Opus 5 | Mistral Small 4 | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1M input + 200K output | $10.00 | $0.27 | Mistral Small 4 |
| 10M input + 2M output | $100.00 | $2.70 | Mistral Small 4 |
| 100M input + 20M output | $1,000.00 | $27.00 | Mistral Small 4 |
Context, output, and capability fit
Claude Opus 5 provides the larger context window. Check max output separately when the task needs long reports, code generation, or full-document rewrites.
- Claude Opus 5 max output
- 128K
- Mistral Small 4 max output
- n/a
- Claude Opus 5 features
- prompt caching, function calling, vision
- Mistral Small 4 features
- prompt caching, function calling, vision
Risk notes for Claude Opus 5
- High output price: cap max tokens for verbose generation workloads.
Risk notes for Mistral Small 4
- No major capability risk is flagged in this snapshot, but provider pages should still be verified before production routing.
Routing tags
frontierpremiumreasoningcodingagentslong-contextmultimodalcache-friendlyragbudgetopen-weightenterpriselocal-open