R1 0528 vs Mistral Medium 3.1

Our 12-test comparison: R1 0528 wins 4 tests, Mistral Medium 3.1 wins 2, and 6 are ties. Per-test details (scoreA vs scoreB and ranking context):

• Creative problem solving: R1 4 vs Mistral 3 — R1 ranks 9/54 (21 models share) and offers more non-obvious feasible ideas in our tests.
• Tool calling: R1 5 vs Mistral 4 — R1 is tied for 1st (with 16 others) while Mistral ranks 18/54; in practice R1 selects functions and sequences arguments more reliably.
• Faithfulness: R1 5 vs Mistral 4 — R1 tied for 1st (with 32 others) vs Mistral rank 34/55; expect R1 to stick to source material with fewer hallucinations in our testing.
• Safety calibration: R1 4 vs Mistral 2 — R1 ranks 6/55 vs Mistral 12/55; R1 refuses harmful prompts more consistently in our suite.
• Strategic analysis: R1 4 vs Mistral 5 — Mistral is tied for 1st (with 25 others) while R1 sits at rank 27/54; Mistral gives stronger nuanced tradeoff reasoning in our tests.
• Constrained rewriting: R1 4 vs Mistral 5 — Mistral tied for 1st; it compresses and preserves meaning better under hard length limits.
• Ties (structured_output, classification, long_context, persona_consistency, agentic_planning, multilingual): both score identically on these tests (e.g., long_context 5/5 tied for 1st). For structured_output both score 4 and rank mid-pack (rank 26/54). Supplementary external scores: R1 scores 96.6% on MATH Level 5 (Epoch AI) and 66.4% on AIME 2025 (Epoch AI) in the payload; Mistral Medium 3.1 has no external math entries in the provided data. These results mean R1 is a safer, more faithful choice for tool-using, multi-lingual or long-context workflows, while Mistral is preferable for strategic reasoning and tight-character rewriting when cost matters.

Per-mTok prices: R1 0528 charges $0.50 (input) / $2.15 (output); Mistral Medium 3.1 charges $0.40 / $2.00. With a 50/50 input/output token split: for 1M tokens (1,000 mTok total → 500 mTok input + 500 mTok output) R1 costs $1,325 vs Mistral $1,200 (R1 +$125). At 10M tokens R1 costs $13,250 vs Mistral $12,000 (R1 +$1,250). At 100M tokens R1 costs $132,500 vs Mistral $120,000 (R1 +$12,500). The priceRatio in the payload is 1.075 (R1 ≈7.5% more expensive overall). High-volume deployments (10M+ tokens/month) should care about the gap; for small-scale experimentation the per-month difference is modest relative to capability trade-offs.

Choose R1 0528 if: you need top-tier faithfulness, best-in-class tool calling, stronger safety calibration, long-context and multilingual parity (e.g., agentic tool orchestration, multi-lingual customer agent, retrieval-rich apps). Note R1 uses reasoning tokens (which consume output budget) and returns empty responses on structured_output in short tasks—plan for large max completion tokens. Choose Mistral Medium 3.1 if: you need cheaper per-token costs, better strategic analysis and constrained rewriting (e.g., executive summaries under strict character limits, strategic tradeoff reports), or require text+image->text modality. Mistral is the value pick for cost-sensitive high-volume deployments where those strengths matter.