Side-by-side comparison of pricing, 12 benchmarks, and generation speed.
| Metric | Command-R (Mar '24) | Magistral Small 1.2 |
|---|---|---|
| Input ($/M tokens) | $0.5 | $0.5 |
| Output ($/M tokens) | $1.5 | $1.5 |
Verdict. Magistral Small 1.2 takes the aggregate benchmark matchup 2–0 across 2 categories. Real workloads usually care about a handful of specific tasks — see the per-benchmark table above.
Pricing. Both models sit in the budget bracket for output-token pricing. At 1.0× the per-million-token cost, Magistral Small 1.2 is meaningfully cheaper if your traffic is output-heavy (long completions, document generation, agent loops). Magistral Small 1.2 makes more sense when output volume is low and absolute reasoning quality justifies the premium.
Strengths. Command-R (Mar '24) is strongest on Intelligence Index (1.7). Magistral Small 1.2 leads on Coding Index (14.7), Intelligence Index (11.5).
Speed. Speed data is incomplete for this pair; benchmark and price should decide.
Provider. Cohere and Mistral sell to overlapping but distinct developer audiences: Cohere tends to ship frontier reasoning models with premium positioning, while Mistral often prices more aggressively. Your existing vendor relationships, billing, and SLA preferences may matter as much as the raw numbers above.
Workload cost. Workload scenarios (per million requests at 30M input + 15M output tokens): Command-R (Mar '24) costs $37.50 ($450/year); Magistral Small 1.2 costs $37.50 ($450/year). At a smaller 5M-input/2M-output scale (single-developer tool or prototype): Command-R (Mar '24) ≈ $5.50/run, Magistral Small 1.2 ≈ $5.50/run. At agent/realtime scale (200M input / 100M output per million requests): Command-R (Mar '24) ≈ $250/run, Magistral Small 1.2 ≈ $250/run.
Recommendation. Both models have legitimate use cases — the right answer depends on whether you are optimizing for benchmark ceiling, latency, or unit cost. Start with the cheaper / faster model, evaluate against your specific task, and only switch if the upgrade shows a meaningful lift.
Data from Artificial Analysis API — 12 benchmarks
Both models have similar pricing. Check the detailed breakdown above for input vs output token costs.
Magistral Small 1.2 wins 2 out of 12 benchmarks compared to 0 for Command-R (Mar '24). See the detailed benchmark chart above for per-category results.
Both models have comparable generation speeds.
Choose based on your priorities: both are similarly priced, Magistral Small 1.2 for stronger benchmark performance, and both have comparable speed. For latency-sensitive apps, check the TTFT comparison above.