Llama 4 Maverick vs Mistral Large 3: which model should you choose?
We compared Llama 4 Maverick and Mistral Large 3 on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Mistral Large 3 has the stronger average benchmark score; Mistral Large 3 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Llama 4 Maverick
Llama 4 Maverick is a multimodal model from Meta AI. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $5.36 per million input tokens and $25.19 per million output tokens, and averages 81.6 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $5.36 / 1M
- Output
- $25.19 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 81.6
- Open weights
- Yes
Mistral Large 3
Mistral Large 3 is a multimodal model from Mistral AI. It offers a 128,000-token context window, costs $5.41 per million input tokens and $23.83 per million output tokens, and averages 81.7 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $5.41 / 1M
- Output
- $23.83 / 1M
- Context
- 128,000
- Avg score
- 81.7
- Open weights
- Yes
Specification comparison
| Spec | Llama 4 Maverick | Mistral Large 3 | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $5.36 | $5.41 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $25.19 | $23.83 | B |
| Context window | 200,000 | 128,000 | A |
| Max output | 8,192 | 4,096 | A |
| Average score | 81.6 | 81.7 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1447.0 | 1448.6 | B |
| Open weights | Yes | Yes | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Llama 4 Maverick wins 5, Mistral Large 3 wins 6, and 1 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Llama 4 Maverick | Mistral Large 3 | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 84.7 | 84.6 | 0.1 | Llama 4 Maverick |
| GPQA Diamond | 76.8 | 79.6 | 2.8 | Mistral Large 3 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 71.8 | 71.3 | 0.5 | Llama 4 Maverick |
| HumanEval | 87.3 | 88.6 | 1.3 | Mistral Large 3 |
| MATH-500 | 82.7 | 84.1 | 1.4 | Mistral Large 3 |
| AIME 2025 | 79.6 | 78.3 | 1.3 | Llama 4 Maverick |
| LiveCodeBench | 75.7 | 74.4 | 1.3 | Llama 4 Maverick |
| IFEval | 87.5 | 89.8 | 2.3 | Mistral Large 3 |
| TruthfulQA | 82.6 | 83.7 | 1.1 | Mistral Large 3 |
| HellaSwag | 88.2 | 88.2 | 0.0 | Tie |
| MMMU | 80.4 | 76.2 | 4.2 | Llama 4 Maverick |
| Arena Elo | 1447.0 | 1448.6 | 1.6 | Mistral Large 3 |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Llama 4 Maverick costs about $10.32 per million tokens and Mistral Large 3 costs about $10.02. Mistral Large 3 is roughly 3% cheaper than Llama 4 Maverick. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Llama 4 Maverick has the larger context window at 200,000 tokens, compared with 128,000 for Mistral Large 3. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Llama 4 Maverick wins 5, Mistral Large 3 wins 6, and 1 are tied. On the index average, Mistral Large 3 leads Llama 4 Maverick by 0.1 points (81.7 versus 81.6).
The price picture favours Mistral Large 3. The context picture favours Llama 4 Maverick. 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 Mistral Large 3 for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.
Choose Llama 4 Maverick if
- You need the larger 200,000-token context window.
- You need the larger 8,192-token output limit.
Choose Mistral Large 3 if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
FAQ
Is Llama 4 Maverick better than Mistral Large 3?
On the index average, Mistral Large 3 leads Llama 4 Maverick by 0.1 points (81.7 versus 81.6). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Llama 4 Maverick wins 5 benchmarks, Mistral Large 3 wins 6.
Which is cheaper, Llama 4 Maverick or Mistral Large 3?
Mistral Large 3 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $10.02 per million tokens, versus $10.32 for Llama 4 Maverick.
Which has the larger context window?
Llama 4 Maverick has the larger context window at 200,000 tokens. Mistral Large 3 has 128,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Llama 4 Maverick is open weights; Mistral Large 3 is open weights.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Mistral Large 3 for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.