Choose Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) if…
- you need image input — to read screenshots, charts and scanned pages; Recursive: Flint (free) does not advertise it
Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) vs Recursive: Flint (free)
Neither wins outright: Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) is the pick when you need image input, Recursive: Flint (free) when cost matters at scale.
Key numbers
| Spec | Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) | Recursive: Flint (free) |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Recursive |
| Input price (per 1M tokens) | $0.07 | $0 |
| Output price (per 1M tokens) | $0.30 | $0 |
| Blended price (3:1 input/output) | $0.13 | $0 |
| Cheaper than … of all models we track | 76% | 90% |
| Context window | 262K tokens (~393 pages) | 262K tokens (~393 pages) |
| Larger context than … of all models | 47% | 47% |
| Max output per response | 210K tokens (~157,300 words) | 236K tokens (~176,900 words) |
| Input types | text, image | text |
| Output types | text | text |
| Free variant | No | Yes |
| Listed since | 2026-03-16 | 2026-10-21 |
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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) | Recursive: Flint (free) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer-support chatbot 50,000 conversations — each a 6-turn conversation (1,500 in / 400 out tokens) | $11.63 | $0 | Recursive: Flint (free) saves $11.63 |
| RAG search over documents 20,000 questions — each a question answered from ~8 retrieved passages (6,000 in / 500 out tokens) | $12.00 | $0 | Recursive: Flint (free) saves $12.00 |
| 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 | $0 | Recursive: Flint (free) saves $12.60 |
| Batch summarisation 10,000 documents — each a 6,000-word report summarised to a page (8,000 in / 600 out tokens) | $7.80 | $0 | Recursive: Flint (free) saves $7.80 |
| 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 | $0 | Recursive: Flint (free) saves $4.05 |
Capabilities side by side
| Capability | Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) | Recursive: Flint (free) | What it lets you do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tool / function calling | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | call your APIs and run agent loops |
| Structured output (JSON schema) | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | return JSON that validates against your schema |
| Reasoning / thinking mode | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | spend extra tokens thinking before answering hard problems |
| Image input | ✓ Yes | — | read 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 | ✓ Yes | repeat a generation for tests and evals |
| Log-probabilities | — | ✓ Yes | 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
- 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.
- Recursive: Flint (free): price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-10-22.
| Date | Model | Input / 1M | Output / 1M |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-10 | Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) | $0.07 | $0.30 |
Which should you choose?
Choose Recursive: Flint (free) if…
- cost matters at scale — it is 100% cheaper on a typical 3:1 input/output mix ($0 vs $11.63 a month for 50,000 support chats)
- you need log-probabilities — to read token confidence for classification and scoring; Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) does not advertise it
- you want to prototype at zero cost — a free variant is listed
- you want the newer model — released 2026-10-21, 7 months after the other
Frequently asked questions
Is Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) better than Recursive: Flint (free)?
Neither wins outright: Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) is the pick when you need image input, Recursive: Flint (free) when cost matters at scale. In short: Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) when you need image input; Recursive: Flint (free) when cost matters at scale, you need log-probabilities, you want to prototype at zero cost, you want the newer model.
Which is cheaper, Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) or Recursive: Flint (free)?
Recursive: Flint (free) is cheaper: $0 vs $0.13 per 1M tokens at a typical 3:1 input/output mix, 100% less. For 50,000 support conversations a month that is $0 against $11.63.
How much do Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) and Recursive: Flint (free) cost per million tokens?
Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) costs $0.07 per 1M input tokens and $0.30 per 1M output tokens; Recursive: Flint (free) costs $0 input and $0 output. Output tokens are billed separately, so long answers shift the gap.
Which has the bigger context window, Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) or Recursive: Flint (free)?
Both take 262K tokens per request — roughly 393 pages of text.
Do Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) and Recursive: Flint (free) support function calling and JSON output?
Tool calling — Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch): yes, Recursive: Flint (free): yes. JSON-schema structured output — Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch): yes, Recursive: Flint (free): yes.
Can Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) or Recursive: Flint (free) read images?
Only Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) accepts image input; Recursive: Flint (free) is text-only for input.
Is Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) or Recursive: Flint (free) free to use?
Recursive: Flint (free) has a free variant (recursive/flint-v1.0:free). Free variants usually carry tighter rate limits.
What is the maximum output length of Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) and Recursive: Flint (free)?
Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) can write up to 210K tokens (about 157,300 words) per response; Recursive: Flint (free) up to 236K (about 176,900 words).
When were Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) and Recursive: Flint (free) released?
Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) was listed on 2026-03-16; Recursive: Flint (free) on 2026-10-21.
Has the price of Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) or Recursive: Flint (free) 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. Recursive: Flint (free): price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-10-22.
About the two models
Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch)
Mistral Small 4 is the next major release in the Mistral Small family, unifying the capabilities of several flagship Mistral models into a single system. It combines strong reasoning from...
Full Mistral: Mistral Small 4 (batch) specs →Recursive: Flint (free)
Flint is an open-weight mixture-of-experts model from Recursive, with about 2.5B active parameters out of 40B total, built by Recursive's autoresearch system Eureka Machine for coding agents. It is suited...
Full Recursive: Flint (free) specs →