Claude 3.5 Haiku vs Mistral Small 4
Claude 3.5 Haiku (2024) and Mistral Small 4 (2026) are frontier reasoning models from Anthropic and MistralAI. Claude 3.5 Haiku ships a 200k-token context window, while Mistral Small 4 ships a 256k-token context window. On pricing, Mistral Small 4 costs $0.15/1M input tokens versus $0.8/1M for the alternative. This comparison covers specs, pricing, capabilities, benchmarks, provider availability, and production fit.
Mistral Small 4 is ~433% cheaper at $0.15/1M; pay for Claude 3.5 Haiku only for coding workflow support.
Specs
| Specification | ||
|---|---|---|
| Released | 2024-10-22 | 2026-03-16 |
| Context window | 200k | 256k |
| Parameters | — | 119B (6.5B active) |
| Architecture | decoder only | moe |
| License | Unknown | Apache 2.0 |
| Knowledge cutoff | - | - |
Pricing and availability
| Pricing attribute | Claude 3.5 Haiku | Mistral Small 4 |
|---|---|---|
| Input price | $0.8/1M tokens | $0.15/1M tokens |
| Output price | $4/1M tokens | $0.6/1M tokens |
| Providers |
Capabilities
| Capability | Claude 3.5 Haiku | Mistral Small 4 |
|---|---|---|
| Vision | Yes | Yes |
| Multimodal | No | Yes |
| Reasoning | Yes | No |
| Function calling | No | Yes |
| Tool use | No | Yes |
| Structured outputs | Yes | No |
| Code execution | Yes | No |
Benchmarks
No shared benchmark rows are currently sourced for this pair.
Deep dive
The capability footprint differs most on multimodal input: Mistral Small 4, reasoning mode: Claude 3.5 Haiku, function calling: Mistral Small 4, tool use: Mistral Small 4, structured outputs: Claude 3.5 Haiku, and code execution: Claude 3.5 Haiku. Both models share vision, so the practical split is not just feature count. Use those differences to decide whether the page is about raw model quality, agentic coding support, multimodal ingestion, or predictable structured API behavior.
For cost, Claude 3.5 Haiku lists $0.8/1M input and $4/1M output tokens, while Mistral Small 4 lists $0.15/1M input and $0.6/1M output tokens on the cheapest tracked provider. A 70/30 input-output blend puts Mistral Small 4 lower by about $1.47 per million blended tokens. Availability is 5 providers versus 2, so concentration risk also matters.
Choose Claude 3.5 Haiku when coding workflow support and broader provider choice are central to the workload. Choose Mistral Small 4 when long-context analysis, larger context windows, and lower input-token cost are more important. For production, rerun your own prompts through the exact provider, region, and tool stack you plan to ship.
FAQ
Which has a larger context window, Claude 3.5 Haiku or Mistral Small 4?
Mistral Small 4 supports 256k tokens, while Claude 3.5 Haiku supports 200k tokens. That gap matters most for long documents, large codebases, retrieval-heavy agents, and conversations where earlier context must remain visible.
Which is cheaper, Claude 3.5 Haiku or Mistral Small 4?
Mistral Small 4 is cheaper on tracked token pricing. Claude 3.5 Haiku costs $0.8/1M input and $4/1M output tokens. Mistral Small 4 costs $0.15/1M input and $0.6/1M output tokens. Provider discounts or batch pricing can still change the final bill.
Is Claude 3.5 Haiku or Mistral Small 4 open source?
Claude 3.5 Haiku is listed under Unknown. Mistral Small 4 is listed under Apache 2.0. License labels affect whether you can self-host, redistribute weights, or rely only on hosted APIs, so confirm the upstream license before deployment.
Which is better for vision, Claude 3.5 Haiku or Mistral Small 4?
Both Claude 3.5 Haiku and Mistral Small 4 expose vision. The better choice depends on benchmark fit, context budget, pricing, and whether your provider route exposes the same capability surface.
Which is better for multimodal input, Claude 3.5 Haiku or Mistral Small 4?
Mistral Small 4 has the clearer documented multimodal input signal in this comparison. If multimodal input is mission-critical, validate it against the provider endpoint because model-level support and API-level exposure can differ.
Where can I run Claude 3.5 Haiku and Mistral Small 4?
Claude 3.5 Haiku is available on Anthropic, OpenRouter, AWS Bedrock, GCP Vertex AI, and Replicate API. Mistral Small 4 is available on OpenRouter and NVIDIA NIM. Provider coverage can affect latency, region availability, compliance posture, and fallback options.
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Last reviewed: 2026-05-11. Data sourced from public model cards and provider documentation.