ModelRefs / GPT-4.1 vs Mistral Small 3.1
GPT-4.1 vs Mistral Small 3.1
GPT-4.1 vs Mistral Small 3.1: side-by-side benchmarks, pricing, context windows, coding ability and deployment. Pick the right model for your stack.
Overview
GPT-4.1: GPT-4.1 is OpenAI's April 2025 API-only model, built for instruction following and tool calling without a reasoning step. It accepts text and image input across a 1,047,576-token context window, returns up to 32,768 tokens, and carries a June 2024 knowledge cutoff — roughly eight times GPT-4o's context at lower per-token pricing. OpenAI has since deprecated it, scheduling the gpt-4.1-2025-04-14 snapshot to shut down on 14 January 2027 with gpt-6-luna as the replacement.
Mistral Small 3.1: Mistral Small 3.1 is Mistral AI's 24-billion-parameter multimodal model, accepting text and image input across a context window of up to 128,000 tokens and published under Apache 2.0. Mistral reports inference speeds of 150 tokens per second and compares it with Gemma 3 and GPT-4o Mini in the same weight class. Its size and licence make it one of the larger models that remains practical to self-host on a single machine.
Context window: GPT-4.1 accepts up to 1,000,000 tokens, Mistral Small 3.1 up to 128,000. Confirm the limit for your specific deployment channel before relying on it.
GPT-4.1 vs Mistral Small 3.1 at a glance
| Attribute | GPT-4.1 | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | Mistral AI |
| Released | 2025-04-14 | 2025-03-17 |
| Context window | 1,000,000 tokens | 128,000 tokens |
| Input price | $2/M tokens | $0.1/M tokens |
| Output price | $8/M tokens | $0.3/M tokens |
| Licence | Proprietary | Apache-2.0 |
| Self-hostable | No, hosted only | Yes, open weights |
| Modalities | text, vision | text, vision |
Where they differ most
- Cost Efficiency: GPT-4.1 51%, Mistral Small 3.1 95%. Mistral Small 3.1 leads on this dimension.
- Reasoning: GPT-4.1 62%, Mistral Small 3.1 63%. Mistral Small 3.1 leads on this dimension.
Capability scores are ModelRefs' own derived signals, not vendor claims or benchmark results. Validate against your own workload before relying on them.
Continue your research
Use these connected ModelRefs sections to compare alternatives, inspect implementation paths, and review the evidence and governance boundaries relevant to GPT-4.1 vs Mistral Small 3.1.
Frequently asked questions
Which is better, GPT-4.1 or Mistral Small 3.1?
GPT-4.1 and Mistral Small 3.1 target different workloads — see the benchmark and pricing tables for a side-by-side answer.
Is GPT-4.1 cheaper than Mistral Small 3.1?
Compare $0.00200 vs $0.00010 on this page.