Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning vs Mistral Large 3 Instruct: which model should you choose?
We compared Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning and Mistral Large 3 Instruct on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning has the stronger average benchmark score; Mistral Large 3 Instruct is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning
Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning is a multimodal model from ByteDance. It offers a 128,000-token context window, costs $14.56 per million input tokens and $58.10 per million output tokens, and averages 81.6 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $14.56 / 1M
- Output
- $58.10 / 1M
- Context
- 128,000
- Avg score
- 81.6
- Open weights
- No
Mistral Large 3 Instruct
Mistral Large 3 Instruct is a multimodal model from Mistral AI. It offers a 400,000-token context window, costs $5.31 per million input tokens and $22.47 per million output tokens, and averages 81.1 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $5.31 / 1M
- Output
- $22.47 / 1M
- Context
- 400,000
- Avg score
- 81.1
- Open weights
- Yes
Specification comparison
| Spec | Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning | Mistral Large 3 Instruct | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $14.56 | $5.31 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $58.10 | $22.47 | B |
| Context window | 128,000 | 400,000 | B |
| Max output | 16,384 | 65,536 | B |
| Average score | 81.6 | 81.1 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1439.2 | 1446.2 | B |
| Open weights | No | Yes | B |
Benchmark comparison
Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning wins 6, Mistral Large 3 Instruct wins 6, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning | Mistral Large 3 Instruct | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 81.8 | 82.3 | 0.5 | Mistral Large 3 Instruct |
| GPQA Diamond | 78.1 | 79.8 | 1.7 | Mistral Large 3 Instruct |
| SWE-bench Verified | 69.7 | 71.9 | 2.2 | Mistral Large 3 Instruct |
| HumanEval | 87.4 | 84.2 | 3.2 | Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning |
| MATH-500 | 85.1 | 83.4 | 1.7 | Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning |
| AIME 2025 | 81.4 | 76.2 | 5.2 | Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning |
| LiveCodeBench | 73.9 | 75.1 | 1.2 | Mistral Large 3 Instruct |
| IFEval | 88.7 | 87.6 | 1.1 | Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning |
| TruthfulQA | 82.3 | 85.5 | 3.2 | Mistral Large 3 Instruct |
| HellaSwag | 90.7 | 89.1 | 1.6 | Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning |
| MMMU | 78.1 | 76.5 | 1.6 | Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning |
| Arena Elo | 1439.2 | 1446.2 | 7.0 | Mistral Large 3 Instruct |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning costs about $25.45 per million tokens and Mistral Large 3 Instruct costs about $9.60. Mistral Large 3 Instruct is roughly 62% cheaper than Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Mistral Large 3 Instruct has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens, compared with 128,000 for Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning wins 6, Mistral Large 3 Instruct wins 6, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning leads Mistral Large 3 Instruct by 0.5 points (81.6 versus 81.1).
The price picture favours Mistral Large 3 Instruct. The context picture favours Mistral Large 3 Instruct. Those two dimensions often matter more than a few benchmark points once a model is good enough for the task.
If you need a single default, start with Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning for quality-sensitive work and Mistral Large 3 Instruct for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- The workload needs multi-step reasoning.
Choose Mistral Large 3 Instruct if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 400,000-token context window.
- You need the larger 65,536-token output limit.
- You need open weights for self-hosting or fine-tuning.
FAQ
Is Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning better than Mistral Large 3 Instruct?
On the index average, Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning leads Mistral Large 3 Instruct by 0.5 points (81.6 versus 81.1). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning wins 6 benchmarks, Mistral Large 3 Instruct wins 6.
Which is cheaper, Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning or Mistral Large 3 Instruct?
Mistral Large 3 Instruct is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $9.60 per million tokens, versus $25.45 for Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning.
Which has the larger context window?
Mistral Large 3 Instruct has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens. Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning has 128,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning is proprietary; Mistral Large 3 Instruct is open weights.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Doubao 1.5 Pro Reasoning for quality-sensitive work and Mistral Large 3 Instruct for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.