Mistral Large 3 vs o3 Vision: which model should you choose?
We compared Mistral Large 3 and o3 Vision on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. o3 Vision has the stronger average benchmark score; Mistral Large 3 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
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
o3 Vision
o3 Vision is a multimodal model from OpenAI. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $15.24 per million input tokens and $65.25 per million output tokens, and averages 81.8 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $15.24 / 1M
- Output
- $65.25 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 81.8
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Mistral Large 3 | o3 Vision | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $5.41 | $15.24 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $23.83 | $65.25 | A |
| Context window | 128,000 | 1,000,000 | B |
| Max output | 4,096 | 8,192 | B |
| Average score | 81.7 | 81.8 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1448.6 | 1436.5 | A |
| Open weights | Yes | No | A |
Benchmark comparison
Mistral Large 3 wins 7, o3 Vision wins 5, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 | o3 Vision | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 84.6 | 83.6 | 1.0 | Mistral Large 3 |
| GPQA Diamond | 79.6 | 77.8 | 1.8 | Mistral Large 3 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 71.3 | 71.8 | 0.5 | o3 Vision |
| HumanEval | 88.6 | 85.6 | 3.0 | Mistral Large 3 |
| MATH-500 | 84.1 | 84.4 | 0.3 | o3 Vision |
| AIME 2025 | 78.3 | 82.4 | 4.1 | o3 Vision |
| LiveCodeBench | 74.4 | 73.7 | 0.7 | Mistral Large 3 |
| IFEval | 89.8 | 89.3 | 0.5 | Mistral Large 3 |
| TruthfulQA | 83.7 | 85.8 | 2.1 | o3 Vision |
| HellaSwag | 88.2 | 89.7 | 1.5 | o3 Vision |
| MMMU | 76.2 | 75.7 | 0.5 | Mistral Large 3 |
| Arena Elo | 1448.6 | 1436.5 | 12.1 | Mistral Large 3 |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Mistral Large 3 costs about $10.02 per million tokens and o3 Vision costs about $27.74. Mistral Large 3 is roughly 64% cheaper than o3 Vision. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
o3 Vision has the larger context window at 1,000,000 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, Mistral Large 3 wins 7, o3 Vision wins 5, and 0 are tied. On the index average, o3 Vision leads Mistral Large 3 by 0.1 points (81.8 versus 81.7).
The price picture favours Mistral Large 3. The context picture favours o3 Vision. 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 o3 Vision for quality-sensitive work and Mistral Large 3 for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose Mistral Large 3 if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need open weights for self-hosting or fine-tuning.
Choose o3 Vision if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- You need the larger 1,000,000-token context window.
- You need the larger 8,192-token output limit.
- The workload needs multi-step reasoning.
FAQ
Is Mistral Large 3 better than o3 Vision?
On the index average, o3 Vision leads Mistral Large 3 by 0.1 points (81.8 versus 81.7). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Mistral Large 3 wins 7 benchmarks, o3 Vision wins 5.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Large 3 or o3 Vision?
Mistral Large 3 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $10.02 per million tokens, versus $27.74 for o3 Vision.
Which has the larger context window?
o3 Vision has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens. Mistral Large 3 has 128,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Mistral Large 3 is open weights; o3 Vision is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with o3 Vision for quality-sensitive work and Mistral Large 3 for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.