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Tool call · 5 checks · max 400 tokens · benched 2026-09-16

Mistral Large 3 2512 vs Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Mistral Small 4 vs Ministral 3 8B 2512 on emit a weather tool call

Mistral AI models side by side on "Emit a weather tool call": Ministral 3 8B 2512 scores 10/10; Ministral 3 8B 2512 is the cheapest answer scoring 8+ at $0.02 per 1,000 runs. Outputs, checks, judge reasons, latency and cost.

The prompt every model received

System

You are a function-calling engine. Reply with JSON only, no prose, no code fences.

User

You have one tool:
{"name": "get_weather", "parameters": {"city": "string", "unit": "one of 'c' or 'f'"}}

Produce the tool call for this user message as a JSON object of the shape {"name": string, "arguments": object}.

User: What's it like in Lisbon right now? Fahrenheit please.

Rubric for the judge: Exactly {"name":"get_weather","arguments":{"city":"Lisbon","unit":"f"}} with no extra keys or text.

Side by side

Every cell is one OpenRouter call at temperature 0 with the prompt's token cap and reasoning effort "low" where the model supports it. Cost is usage × the catalogue rate in models.json. Quality is one judge call to anthropic/claude-haiku-4.5 against the prompt's rubric, cached per prompt version.

Mistral Large 3 2512

mistralai/mistral-large-2512

10/10
Latency
470ms
Cost
$0.00011
Per 1,000
$0.11

104 in · 39 out · 13 words · checks 5/5

  • json_valid
  • json_keys
  • regex
  • regex
  • regex
```json
{
  "name": "get_weather",
  "arguments": {
    "city": "Lisbon",
    "unit": "f"
  }
}
```

Judge: Output exactly matches the required format with correct tool name, city parameter, and unit parameter, with no extra keys or commentary.

Mistral Medium 3.5

mistralai/mistral-medium-3-5

10/10
Latency
472ms
Cost
$0.00136
Per 1,000
$1.36

116 in · 158 out (123 reasoning) · 7 words · checks 5/5

  • json_valid
  • json_keys
  • regex
  • regex
  • regex
{"name": "get_weather", "arguments": {"city": "Lisbon", "unit": "f"}}

Judge: Output exactly matches the required format with correct tool name, city, and unit parameters, no extra keys or commentary.

Mistral Small 4

mistralai/mistral-small-2603

10/10
Latency
490ms
Cost
$7.3e-5
Per 1,000
$0.07

116 in · 93 out (68 reasoning) · 7 words · checks 5/5

  • json_valid
  • json_keys
  • regex
  • regex
  • regex
{"name": "get_weather", "arguments": {"city": "Lisbon", "unit": "f"}}

Judge: Output exactly matches the required format with correct tool name, city, and unit parameters, no extra keys or commentary.

Ministral 3 8B 2512

mistralai/ministral-8b-2512

10/10
top judge scorecheapest scoring 8+
Latency
332ms
Cost
$1.9e-5
Per 1,000
$0.02

104 in · 26 out · 7 words · checks 5/5

  • json_valid
  • json_keys
  • regex
  • regex
  • regex
{"name": "get_weather", "arguments": {"city": "Lisbon", "unit": "f"}}

Judge: Output exactly matches the required format with correct tool name, city, and unit parameters, no extra keys or commentary.

Frequently asked

What does this prompt test?

Tool call: Exactly {"name":"get_weather","arguments":{"city":"Lisbon","unit":"f"}} with no extra keys or text. The deterministic checks are json_valid, json_keys, regex, regex, regex.

Which model should I pick for this task?

If the judge's bar of 8/10 is good enough for you, Ministral 3 8B 2512 at $0.02 per 1,000 runs. If you need the top score, Ministral 3 8B 2512 at $0.02 per 1,000 runs.

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