Mistral Large 3 vs Llama 3.1 405B
Mistral vs Meta · Prices checked November 11, 2026
Both price out at $0.8000 per million tokens blended, making this a capability comparison rather than a cost one.
Pricing and capacity
RatesUSD per million tokens. Prices checked November 11, 2026.
| Metric | Mistral Large 3 | Llama 3.1 405B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input / 1M tokens | $0.5000 | $0.8000 | 38% |
| Output / 1M tokens | $1.50 | $0.8000 | 47% |
| Blended · 70/30calculated | $0.8000 | $0.8000 | level |
| Blended · 50/50calculated | $1.00 | $0.8000 | 20% |
| Blended · 80/20calculated | $0.7000 | $0.8000 | 13% |
| Blended · 20/80calculated | $1.30 | $0.8000 | 38% |
| Job cost · 100K + 10Kcalculated | $0.0650 | $0.0880 | 26% |
| Job cost · 1M + 100Kcalculated | $0.6500 | $0.8800 | 26% |
| Context window | 256,000 | 128,000 | 2.0× |
Input and output rates are as published by each provider. Blended and job-cost rows are calculated comparison metrics, not published prices — how they are derived.
These two swap places depending on direction of traffic: Mistral Large 3 leads on an 80/20 input-heavy blend, Llama 3.1 405B on a 20/80 output-heavy one. Capability favours Mistral Large 3, ahead on 1 of 1 suites they both publish. The widest gap is on LMArena Elo, where Mistral Large 3 leads by 79 points. Mistral Large 3 reads more in one request: 256,000 tokens of context against 128,000.
Benchmarks
| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 | Llama 3.1 405B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena Elo | 1414 Elo | 1335 Elo | Mistral Large 3 |
Only suites both models report are listed, so a missing score is never shown as a loss. Figures are provider-published or from public leaderboards and are not independently re-run.
What each model is for
Mistral Large 3
Mistral · Frontier
Llama 3.1 405B
Meta · Large
Largest dense Llama. Used as a quality benchmark for open weights, heavy to run, often hosted via Together / DeepInfra / Cerebras.
- Top open-weights quality
- Permissive license
- Strong reasoning
Frequently asked questions
Which is cheaper, Mistral Large 3 or Llama 3.1 405B?
Both price out at $0.8000 per million tokens blended, making this a capability comparison rather than a cost one. Blended cost weights input at 70% and output at 30%; price your own token split for an exact answer, since the cheaper model on a blended basis is not always cheaper for your workload.
Which performs better, Mistral Large 3 or Llama 3.1 405B?
Capability favours Mistral Large 3, ahead on 1 of 1 suites they both publish. The widest gap is on LMArena Elo, where Mistral Large 3 leads by 79 points. These are the figures each provider or public leaderboard publishes, not results we re-run, and a benchmark average can hide the specific behaviour your workload depends on.
Which has the larger context window, Mistral Large 3 or Llama 3.1 405B?
Mistral Large 3 reads more in one request: 256,000 tokens of context against 128,000. The context window caps everything in a single request: prompt, retrieved documents, conversation history and the model’s own output all share it.
Can I compare Mistral Large 3 and Llama 3.1 405B on my own numbers?
Yes. Open both in the side-by-side comparison tool to see every field at once, or use the token calculator to price your actual prompt and monthly request volume against each model. Both are free and need no sign-up.
Price it for your own workload
Related matchups
Terms used on this page
Prices and scores are recomputed on every deploy from the catalogue. Prices checked November 11, 2026.