Compare/Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct vs Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning)

Qwen3 VL 30B A3B InstructvsMistral Small 4 (Reasoning)

Side-by-side comparison of pricing, 12 benchmarks, and generation speed.

Alibaba

Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct

Input
$0.2/M
Output
$0.6/M
Speed
124 tok/s
TTFT
1.02s
Mistral

Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning)

Input
$0.15/M
Output
$0.6/M
Speed
163 tok/s
TTFT
0.57s

Winner by Category

Cheaper
Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning)
Faster (tok/s)
Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning)
Lower Latency
Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning)
Benchmarks (4-7)
Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning)

Pricing Comparison

MetricQwen3 VL 30B A3B InstructMistral Small 4 (Reasoning)
Input ($/M tokens)$0.2$0.15
Output ($/M tokens)$0.6$0.6
Cost for 1M input + 100K output tokens:
Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct$0.26
Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning)$0.21

Speed Comparison

Output Speed (tokens/s) — higher is better
Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct
124 tok/s
Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning)
163 tok/s
Time to First Token (seconds) — lower is better
Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct
1.02s
Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning)
0.57s

Benchmark Comparison

Data from Artificial Analysis API — 12 benchmarks

Intelligence Index
16.027.8
Coding Index
14.324.3
Math Index
72.3
GPQA Diamond
69.5%76.9%
MMLU-Pro
76.4%
LiveCodeBench
47.6%
AIME 2025
72.3%
MATH-500
Humanity's Last Exam
6.4%9.5%
SciCode
30.8%38.0%
IFBench
33.1%48.2%
TerminalBench
6.1%17.4%
Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct4 wins
7 winsMistral Small 4 (Reasoning)

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is cheaper, Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct or Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning)?

Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) is cheaper overall. Its blended price (3:1 input/output ratio) is $0.26/M tokens vs $0.30/M for Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct.

Which model performs better on benchmarks?

Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) wins 7 out of 12 benchmarks compared to 4 for Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct. See the detailed benchmark chart above for per-category results.

Which is faster for real-time applications?

Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) generates tokens faster at 163 tok/s vs 124 tok/s. However, Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) has lower time-to-first-token (0.57s vs 1.02s).

When should I use Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct vs Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning)?

Choose based on your priorities: Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) for lower cost, Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) for stronger benchmark performance, and Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) for faster generation. For latency-sensitive apps, check the TTFT comparison above.