Mistral Magistral Small 2509 vs Mistral Medium 3

Name: Mistral Magistral Small 2509
Author: MistralAI

Mistral Magistral Small 2509 (2025) and Mistral Medium 3 (2025) are compact production models from MistralAI. Mistral Magistral Small 2509 ships a not-yet-sourced context window, while Mistral Medium 3 ships a 128K-token context window. On pricing, Mistral Medium 3 costs $0.40/1M input tokens versus $0.50/1M for the alternative. This comparison covers specs, pricing, API access, capabilities, benchmarks, input and output token costs, and production fit for coding and agent workloads.

Mistral Magistral Small 2509 is safer overall; choose Mistral Medium 3 when coding workflow support matters.

Decision scorecard

Local evidence first

Signal	Mistral Magistral Small 2509	Mistral Medium 3	How to read it
Best for	provider-routed production	multimodal apps, tool-calling agents, and provider-routed production	Use-case synthesis from product type, capability flags, context, and provider data.
Decision fit	General	Coding, RAG, and Agents	Primary workload tags from local decision data.
Context window	—	128K	Higher is better when prompts, retrieval chunks, or transcripts are large.
Cheapest output	$1.50/1M tokens	$2/1M tokens	Cheapest tracked provider route; verify your exact region and tier.
Provider routes	2 tracked	5 tracked	Broader coverage can reduce vendor lock-in and fallback risk.
Shared benchmarks	0 shared	0 shared	No shared benchmark scores are available for this pair yet.

Decision tradeoffs

Choose Mistral Magistral Small 2509 when...

Mistral Magistral Small 2509 has the lower cheapest tracked output price at $1.50/1M tokens.

Choose Mistral Medium 3 when...

Mistral Medium 3 has the larger context window for long prompts, retrieval packs, or transcript analysis.
Mistral Medium 3 has broader tracked provider coverage for fallback and route flexibility.
Mistral Medium 3 uniquely exposes Vision, Multimodal, and JSON / Tool use in local model data.
Local decision data tags Mistral Medium 3 for Coding, RAG, and Agents.

Monthly cost at traffic

Estimate token spend from the cheapest tracked input and output route or tier on this page.

Lower estimate Mistral Magistral Small 2509

Requests / monthInput tokens / requestOutput tokens / request

Mistral Magistral Small 2509

$775

Cheapest tracked route/tier: AWS Bedrock

Mistral Medium 3

$820

Cheapest tracked route/tier: Mistral AI Studio

Estimated monthly gap: $45.00. Batch, cache, alternate speed tiers, and negotiated pricing are excluded from this local estimate.

Switch friction

Mistral Magistral Small 2509 -> Mistral Medium 3

No overlapping tracked provider route is sourced for Mistral Magistral Small 2509 and Mistral Medium 3; plan for SDK, billing, or endpoint changes.
Mistral Medium 3 is $0.50/1M tokens higher on cheapest tracked output pricing, so quality gains need to justify the spend.
Mistral Medium 3 adds Vision, Multimodal, and JSON / Tool use in local capability data.

Mistral Medium 3 -> Mistral Magistral Small 2509

No overlapping tracked provider route is sourced for Mistral Medium 3 and Mistral Magistral Small 2509; plan for SDK, billing, or endpoint changes.
Mistral Magistral Small 2509 is $0.50/1M tokens lower on cheapest tracked output pricing before cache, batch, or negotiated discounts.
Check replacement coverage for Vision, Multimodal, and JSON / Tool use before moving production traffic.

Specs

Specification	Mistral Magistral Small 2509 MistralAI	Mistral Medium 3 MistralAI
Released	2025-09-01	2025-05-01
Context window	—	128K
Parameters	24B	—
Architecture	-	Decoder Only
License	Apache 2.0OSI-approved	Proprietary
Openness	Open source	Proprietary
Weights	Unknown	Not released
Code	Unknown	Unknown
Commercial use	Permitted	Restricted
Knowledge cutoff	-	2025-03

Pricing and availability

Pricing attribute	Mistral Magistral Small 2509	Mistral Medium 3
Input price	$0.50/1M tokens	$0.40/1M tokens
Output price	$1.50/1M tokens	$2/1M tokens
Providers	AWS Bedrock Vercel AI Gateway	NVIDIA NIM Mistral AI Studio Microsoft Foundry OpenRouter GCP Vertex AI

Capabilities

Capability	Mistral Magistral Small 2509	Mistral Medium 3
Vision	No	Yes
Multimodal	No	Yes
Reasoning	No	No
JSON / Tool use	No	Yes
Structured outputs	No	Yes
Code execution	No	Yes
IDE integration	No	No
Computer use	No	No
Parallel agents	No	No

Benchmarks

No shared benchmark scores are currently available for this pair.

Deep dive

The capability footprint differs most on vision: Mistral Medium 3, multimodal input: Mistral Medium 3, JSON / Tool use: Mistral Medium 3, JSON / Tool use: Mistral Medium 3, structured outputs: Mistral Medium 3, and code execution: Mistral Medium 3. Both models share the core language-model surface, 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, Mistral Magistral Small 2509 lists $0.50/1M input and $1.50/1M output tokens on the cheapest tracked provider, while Mistral Medium 3 lists $0.40/1M input and $2/1M output tokens on the cheapest tracked provider. A 70/30 input-output blend puts Mistral Magistral Small 2509 lower by about $0.08 per million blended tokens. Availability is 2 providers versus 5, so concentration risk also matters.

Choose Mistral Magistral Small 2509 when provider fit are central to the workload. Choose Mistral Medium 3 when coding workflow support, lower input-token cost, and broader provider choice are more important. For production, rerun your own prompts through the exact provider, region, and tool stack you plan to ship.

FAQ

Which is cheaper, Mistral Magistral Small 2509 or Mistral Medium 3?

Mistral Magistral Small 2509 is cheaper on tracked token pricing. Mistral Magistral Small 2509 costs $0.50/1M input and $1.50/1M output tokens. Mistral Medium 3 costs $0.40/1M input and $2/1M output tokens. Provider discounts or batch pricing can still change the final bill.

Is Mistral Magistral Small 2509 or Mistral Medium 3 open source?

Mistral Magistral Small 2509 is listed under Apache 2.0. Mistral Medium 3 is listed under Proprietary. 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, Mistral Magistral Small 2509 or Mistral Medium 3?

Mistral Medium 3 has the clearer documented vision signal in this comparison. If vision is mission-critical, validate it against the provider endpoint because model-level support and API-level exposure can differ.

Which is better for multimodal input, Mistral Magistral Small 2509 or Mistral Medium 3?

Mistral Medium 3 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.

Which is better for JSON / Tool use, Mistral Magistral Small 2509 or Mistral Medium 3?

Mistral Medium 3 has the clearer documented JSON / Tool use signal in this comparison. If JSON / Tool use is mission-critical, validate it against the provider endpoint because model-level support and API-level exposure can differ.

Where can I run Mistral Magistral Small 2509 and Mistral Medium 3?

Mistral Magistral Small 2509 is available on AWS Bedrock and Vercel AI Gateway. Mistral Medium 3 is available on NVIDIA NIM, Mistral AI Studio, Microsoft Foundry, OpenRouter, and GCP Vertex AI. Provider coverage can affect latency, region availability, compliance posture, and fallback options.

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Last reviewed: 2026-10-18. Data sourced from public model cards and provider documentation.

Both models

Mistral Magistral Small 2509 Mistral Medium 3