Head to head · tested 27 Oct 2026

Ministral 3 8B 2512 vs Solar Pro 4: accuracy, speed and price

Similar accuracy; Ministral 3 8B 2512 costs less per question.

MistralMinistral 3 8B 251242.5% score · #52$0.00027 per question124 tok/sUpstageSolar Pro 445.0% score · #49$0.0018 per question91 tok/s

Verdict

Built from the measurements below

  • Accuracy is too close to call: Ministral 3 8B 2512 scored 42.5% and Solar Pro 4 45.0% on the same 80 questions, a gap within what chance alone could produce.
  • Ministral 3 8B 2512 is 6.8× cheaper per question as billed ($0.00027 vs $0.0018), reasoning tokens included.
  • Ministral 3 8B 2512 generates text 1.4× faster: 124 tokens per second against 91.
  • Ministral 3 8B 2512 starts answering sooner: 0.3 s to the first token, against 0.6 s for Solar Pro 4.
  • Solar Pro 4 accepts more context: 524k tokens against 262k.

Which should you choose?

Choose Ministral 3 8B 2512 for the lower cost per correct answer ($0.00063 against $0.0041), faster streaming, a quicker first token, shorter outputs (about 1,496 tokens per question against 2,952) and open weights you can run yourself. Choose Solar Pro 4 for a 524k-token context window. The widest subject gap is in science: Solar Pro 4 answered 18 of 30 correctly, Ministral 3 8B 2512 10 of 30. With so few questions per subject, treat this as a lead to test on your own prompts, not a result.

Accuracy gap -2.5 points (z = -0.32). A winner is called only when z is at least 1.96, the usual 95% threshold. Speed, latency and price need a 10% margin.

Head to head

Same questions, same prompt, same API

MeasureMinistral 3 8B 2512Solar Pro 4Edge
Verification scoreHigher is better42.5%45.0%Too close to call
Cost per questionLower is better$0.00027$0.0018Ministral 3 8B 2512
Output speedHigher is better12491Ministral 3 8B 2512
Time to first tokenLower is better0.3 s0.6 sMinistral 3 8B 2512
End-to-end response timeLower is better3.5 s8.3 sMinistral 3 8B 2512
Tokens per questionLower is better1,4962,952Ministral 3 8B 2512
Context windowHigher is better262k524kSolar Pro 4

Side by side

Bars are scaled to the larger of the two values. The winner on each measure is marked in bold.

Every measure

Ministral 3 8B 2512 first, Solar Pro 4 second

Verification scorehigher is better
Ministral 3 8B 251242.5%
Solar Pro 445.0%
Cost per questionlower is better
Ministral 3 8B 2512$0.00027
Solar Pro 4$0.0018
Output speedhigher is better
Ministral 3 8B 2512124
Solar Pro 491
Time to first tokenlower is better
Ministral 3 8B 25120.3 s
Solar Pro 40.6 s
End-to-end response timelower is better
Ministral 3 8B 25123.5 s
Solar Pro 48.3 s
Tokens per questionlower is better
Ministral 3 8B 25121,496
Solar Pro 42,952
Context windowhigher is better
Ministral 3 8B 2512262k
Solar Pro 4524k

Score vs. cost per question

Both models in color, every other model in grey

Most attractive quadrant0255075100$0.00001$0.0001$0.001$0.01$0.10Cost per question (USD, log) →Verification score (%) →Qwen3.8 2.4T A95BCommand AReka Flash 3Gemma 4 26B A4BGemma 4 31BQwen3.5 397B A17BHermes 4 405BMuse WonderGrok 4.7o3gpt-oss-20bMinistral 3 3B 2512Nova Micro 1.0Phi 4Ministral 3 8B 2512Granite 4.2 8BHy3GLM 5.3 FlashSolar Pro 4Trinity Large ThinkingMiniMax M3Mistral Large 4Claude Opus 5.5GPT-6.1 SolGemini 4 ArgonGPT-5.4GPT-6 Lunagpt-oss-120bLlama 4 Maverick

Specifications and pricing

From OpenRouter's catalogue, plus the leaderboard's test dates

SpecificationMinistral 3 8B 2512Solar Pro 4
CreatorMistralUpstage
Released2 Dec 202510 Aug 2026
WeightsOpen weights—
ReasoningNoYes
Inputtext, imagetext
Outputtexttext
Context window262k tokens524k tokens
Knowledge cutoff——
List price in / out per 1M$0.15 / $0.15$0.15 / $0.6
Blended price per 1M (3:1)$0.15$0.26
Cheapest hostMistral · $0.15 / $0.15Upstage · $0.15 / $0.6
Hosts on OpenRouter11
Last tested26 Oct 202626 Oct 2026

Compare any two models →

Ministral 3 8B 2512 vs Solar Pro 4: frequently asked questions

Is Ministral 3 8B 2512 better than Solar Pro 4?
On accuracy they are statistically tied: Ministral 3 8B 2512 scored 42.5% and Solar Pro 4 45.0% on the same 80 questions from open datasets. Similar accuracy; Ministral 3 8B 2512 costs less per question.
Which is cheaper, Ministral 3 8B 2512 or Solar Pro 4?
Ministral 3 8B 2512 is cheaper: $0.00027 per question as billed, against $0.0018. List prices: Ministral 3 8B 2512 $0.15 in / $0.15 out, Solar Pro 4 $0.15 in / $0.6 out per million tokens.
Which is faster, Ministral 3 8B 2512 or Solar Pro 4?
Ministral 3 8B 2512 is faster at 124 output tokens per second, against 91. Time to first token: 0.3 s for Ministral 3 8B 2512, 0.6 s for Solar Pro 4.
Which has the larger context window, Ministral 3 8B 2512 or Solar Pro 4?
Solar Pro 4, with 524k tokens against 262k.