Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) vs Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B (batch)

Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) comes out ahead on the data we track: 2 advantages and none for Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B (batch).

Key numbers

SpecMistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch)Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B (batch)
ProviderMistral AIQwen
Input price (per 1M tokens)$0.07$0.17
Output price (per 1M tokens)$0.30$0.25
Blended price (3:1 input/output)$0.13$0.19
Cheaper than … of all models we track76%70%
Context window262K tokens (~393 pages)262K tokens (~393 pages)
Larger context than … of all models48%48%
Max output per response210K tokens (~157,300 words)236K tokens (~176,900 words)
Input typestext, imagetext, image, video
Output typestexttext
Free variantNoNo
Listed since2026-03-162026-03-10
Advertisement

What it costs for real workloads

Monthly cost at list price for five common workloads. Token counts per unit are stated so you can scale them to your own traffic. A workload that does not fit a model's context window is marked rather than priced.

Workload (per month)Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch)Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B (batch)Difference
Customer-support chatbot
50,000 conversations — each a 6-turn conversation (1,500 in / 400 out tokens)
$11.63$17.75Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) saves $6.13
RAG search over documents
20,000 questions — each a question answered from ~8 retrieved passages (6,000 in / 500 out tokens)
$12.00$22.90Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) saves $10.90
Coding / tool-using agent
2,000 tasks — each a multi-step task with tool calls and file context (60,000 in / 6,000 out tokens)
$12.60$23.40Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) saves $10.80
Batch summarisation
10,000 documents — each a 6,000-word report summarised to a page (8,000 in / 600 out tokens)
$7.80$15.10Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) saves $7.30
Long-document analysis
500 documents — each a 150-page contract or codebase read in one pass (100,000 in / 2,000 out tokens)
$4.05$8.75Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) saves $4.70

Capabilities side by side

CapabilityMistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch)Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B (batch)What it lets you do
Tool / function calling✓ Yes✓ Yescall your APIs and run agent loops
Structured output (JSON schema)✓ Yes✓ Yesreturn JSON that validates against your schema
Reasoning / thinking mode✓ Yes✓ Yesspend extra tokens thinking before answering hard problems
Image input✓ Yes✓ Yesread screenshots, charts and scanned pages
Audio input——take speech or audio directly
File / PDF input——accept documents without your own parsing step
Image output——generate images, not just text
Built-in web search——answer from live web results
Seed (reproducible sampling)✓ Yes—repeat a generation for tests and evals
Log-probabilities——read token confidence for classification and scoring

From each model's published parameters and input/output types. “—” means not advertised, not proven absent.

Price history

DateModelInput / 1MOutput / 1M
2026-09-10Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch)$0.07$0.30

Which should you choose?

Choose Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) if…

  • cost matters at scale — it is 31% cheaper on a typical 3:1 input/output mix ($11.63 vs $17.75 a month for 50,000 support chats)
  • you need seed (reproducible sampling) — to repeat a generation for tests and evals; Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B (batch) does not advertise it

Choose Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B (batch) if…

No advantage on the data we track — pick it for provider preference or output quality on your own prompts.

Frequently asked questions

Is Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) better than Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B (batch)?

Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) comes out ahead on the data we track: 2 advantages and none for Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B (batch).

Which is cheaper, Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) or Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B (batch)?

Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) is cheaper: $0.13 vs $0.19 per 1M tokens at a typical 3:1 input/output mix, 31% less. For 50,000 support conversations a month that is $11.63 against $17.75.

How much do Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) and Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B (batch) cost per million tokens?

Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) costs $0.07 per 1M input tokens and $0.30 per 1M output tokens; Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B (batch) costs $0.17 input and $0.25 output. Output tokens are billed separately, so long answers shift the gap.

Which has the bigger context window, Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) or Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B (batch)?

Both take 262K tokens per request — roughly 393 pages of text.

Do Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) and Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B (batch) support function calling and JSON output?

Tool calling — Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch): yes, Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B (batch): yes. JSON-schema structured output — Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch): yes, Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B (batch): yes.

Can Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) or Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B (batch) read images?

Yes, both accept image input.

Is Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) or Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B (batch) free to use?

No free variant is listed for either; both are pay-per-token.

What is the maximum output length of Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) and Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B (batch)?

Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) can write up to 210K tokens (about 157,300 words) per response; Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B (batch) up to 236K (about 176,900 words).

When were Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) and Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B (batch) released?

Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) was listed on 2026-03-16; Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B (batch) on 2026-03-10.

Has the price of Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) or Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B (batch) changed?

Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch): input price cut 50% ($0.15 → $0.07/1M), output price cut 50% ($0.60 → $0.30/1M) on 2026-09-10. Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B (batch): price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-08-29.

About the two models

Compare Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) with other models

Compare Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B (batch) with other models

Advertisement