Llama 4 Maverick Instruct vs Mistral Large 3 Instruct: which model should you choose?
We compared Llama 4 Maverick Instruct and Mistral Large 3 Instruct on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Llama 4 Maverick Instruct has the stronger average benchmark score; Mistral Large 3 Instruct is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Llama 4 Maverick Instruct
Llama 4 Maverick Instruct is a multimodal model from Meta AI. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $5.33 per million input tokens and $23.04 per million output tokens, and averages 81.7 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $5.33 / 1M
- Output
- $23.04 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 81.7
- Open weights
- Yes
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 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct | Mistral Large 3 Instruct | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $5.33 | $5.31 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $23.04 | $22.47 | B |
| Context window | 200,000 | 400,000 | B |
| Max output | 16,384 | 65,536 | B |
| Average score | 81.7 | 81.1 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1438.5 | 1446.2 | B |
| Open weights | Yes | Yes | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Llama 4 Maverick Instruct wins 7, Mistral Large 3 Instruct wins 4, and 1 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct | Mistral Large 3 Instruct | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 84.6 | 82.3 | 2.3 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| GPQA Diamond | 79.5 | 79.8 | 0.3 | Mistral Large 3 Instruct |
| SWE-bench Verified | 69.1 | 71.9 | 2.8 | Mistral Large 3 Instruct |
| HumanEval | 85.0 | 84.2 | 0.8 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| MATH-500 | 83.4 | 83.4 | 0.0 | Tie |
| AIME 2025 | 79.9 | 76.2 | 3.7 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| LiveCodeBench | 75.8 | 75.1 | 0.7 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| IFEval | 88.9 | 87.6 | 1.3 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| TruthfulQA | 84.0 | 85.5 | 1.5 | Mistral Large 3 Instruct |
| HellaSwag | 89.6 | 89.1 | 0.5 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| MMMU | 79.0 | 76.5 | 2.5 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| Arena Elo | 1438.5 | 1446.2 | 7.7 | Mistral Large 3 Instruct |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Llama 4 Maverick Instruct costs about $9.76 per million tokens and Mistral Large 3 Instruct costs about $9.60. Mistral Large 3 Instruct is roughly 2% cheaper than Llama 4 Maverick Instruct. 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 200,000 for Llama 4 Maverick Instruct. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Llama 4 Maverick Instruct wins 7, Mistral Large 3 Instruct wins 4, and 1 are tied. On the index average, Llama 4 Maverick Instruct leads Mistral Large 3 Instruct by 0.6 points (81.7 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 Llama 4 Maverick Instruct 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 Llama 4 Maverick Instruct if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
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.
FAQ
Is Llama 4 Maverick Instruct better than Mistral Large 3 Instruct?
On the index average, Llama 4 Maverick Instruct leads Mistral Large 3 Instruct by 0.6 points (81.7 versus 81.1). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Llama 4 Maverick Instruct wins 7 benchmarks, Mistral Large 3 Instruct wins 4.
Which is cheaper, Llama 4 Maverick Instruct 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 $9.76 for Llama 4 Maverick Instruct.
Which has the larger context window?
Mistral Large 3 Instruct has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens. Llama 4 Maverick Instruct has 200,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Llama 4 Maverick Instruct is open weights; Mistral Large 3 Instruct is open weights.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Llama 4 Maverick Instruct 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.