Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) is free for input tokens while Mistral Small 3 costs $0.05 per 1M tokens.
API cost decision in 10 seconds
Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) vs Mistral Small 3
Pick Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) when budget and context both matter.
Page updated:
Data confirmed:
Prices normalized to USD per 1M tokens
Sample workload: 1M input + 500K output
Budget verdict
Pick Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) when budget and context both matter.
On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) is estimated at $0 vs $0.09 for Mistral Small 3, saving $0.09 (100% lower).
Cost-first pickNemotron Nano 9B V2 (free)
Context-first pickNemotron Nano 9B V2 (free)
Sample savings$0.09100%
10x traffic gap$0.9
Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) is cheaper on the standard workload and also has the larger context window. At 10x that traffic, the same price gap is about $0.9. Use the calculator below to replace the sample workload with your own token volume.
Cost sensitivity
Workload Sensitivity
Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) stays cheaper across input-heavy, balanced, and output-heavy sample workloads.
| Workload shape | Token mix | Better pick | Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Input-heavy / RAG | 5M input + 500K output | Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) | $0 | $0.29 |
| Balanced workload | 1M input + 1M output | Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) | $0 | $0.13 |
| Output-heavy chatbot | 1M input + 5M output | Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) | $0 | $0.45 |
Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) is free for output tokens while Mistral Small 3 costs $0.08 per 1M tokens.
Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) has 95.23K more context (3.91x larger).
Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) is free for the standard workload while the other model is estimated at $0.09.
Estimate your workload cost
Your Workload Cost
This estimate uses normalized public API pricing per 1M tokens. It is a planning aid, not a billing quote. Verify provider pricing, limits, and terms before production use.
Quick Decision
Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) has the lower input price; Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) has the lower output price; Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) offers the larger context window. For the 1M input plus 500K output sample, Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) is cheaper for the standard workload.
For a 1M input token plus 500K output token workload, the estimated API cost is $0 for Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) and $0.09 for Mistral Small 3.
Choose Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) when you care most about lower input-token price, lower output-token price, and larger context window.
Choose Mistral Small 3 when its provider, model quality, latency, or availability is more important than the numeric price/context winner.
- On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) is estimated at $0 vs $0.09 for Mistral Small 3, saving $0.09 (100% lower).
- Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) is free for the standard workload while the other model is estimated at $0.09.
- Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) is free for input tokens while Mistral Small 3 costs $0.05 per 1M tokens.
- Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) is free for output tokens while Mistral Small 3 costs $0.08 per 1M tokens.
- Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) has 95.23K more context (3.91x larger).
| Feature | Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) (NVIDIA) | Mistral Small 3 (Mistral) |
|---|---|---|
| Input Price prompt tokens per 1M | $0 | $0.05 |
| Completion Price per 1M tokens | $0 | $0.08 |
| Sample Workload Cost 1M input + 500K output | $0 | $0.09 |
| Context Window | 128K | 32.77K |
| Release Date | ||
| Popularity | #107 | #135 |
Use-Case Decision Matrix
| Use case | Better pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Budget-constrained production | Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) | On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) is estimated at $0 vs $0.09 for Mistral Small 3, saving $0.09 (100% lower). |
| High-volume input processing | Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) | Lower prompt-token price matters most when prompts, retrieved passages, or documents dominate the bill. |
| Long responses and chatbots | Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) | Lower output-token price matters most when assistants generate many completion tokens. |
| RAG or long-document work | Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) | A larger context window leaves more room for retrieved passages, conversation history, or source files. |
Related Alternatives
- Mistral Nemo can replace Mistral Small 3 when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.04.
- Owl Alpha offers 1.05M context with $0 sample workload cost.
- DeepSeek V4 Flash (free) offers 1.05M context with $0 sample workload cost.
- Lyria 3 Clip Preview offers 1.05M context with $0 sample workload cost.
- Lyria 3 Pro Preview offers 1.05M context with $0 sample workload cost.
- DeepSeek V4 Flash · DeepSeek · #1
- Hy3 preview · Tencent · #2
- Claude Opus 4.7 · Anthropic · #3
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 · Anthropic · #4
Cheaper alternatives
Review low-cost models sorted by a standard 1M input plus 500K output workload.
Open cheapest modelsLarger context alternatives
Find models with larger context windows for RAG, long documents, and codebase review.
Open largest context modelsProvider catalogs
Compare models within provider hubs before choosing a final API vendor.
Open provider hubsNVIDIA catalog
Review all tracked NVIDIA models before deciding whether this matchup is the right shortlist.
Open NVIDIA modelsMistral catalog
Check other Mistral models with comparable pricing, context, or release timing.
Open Mistral modelsNVIDIA-Nemotron-Nano-9B-v2 is a large language model (LLM) trained from scratch by NVIDIA, and designed as a unified model for both reasoning and non-reasoning tasks. It responds to user queries and...
Mistral Small 3 is a 24B-parameter language model optimized for low-latency performance across common AI tasks. Released under the Apache 2.0 license, it features both pre-trained and instruction-tuned versions designed...