Model comparison

Amazon Nova Micro vs MiniMax-M3

MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.8 to 30.4 on the Noometry Index. Amazon Nova Micro costs 8.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M3's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.

Amazon Nova Micro Amazon

30.4

Rank #294 Confirmed

MiniMax-M3 MiniMax

43.8

Rank #85 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Amazon Nova Micro scores higher in 0 categories and MiniMax-M3 in 9 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where MiniMax-M3 leads 58.4 to 29.6.
  • Amazon Nova Micro is cheaper at $0.035 / $0.14 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M3.
  • MiniMax-M3 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 128K.
  • MiniMax-M3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Amazon Nova Micro and MiniMax-M3 specifications
Amazon Nova MicroMiniMax-M3
ProviderAmazonMiniMax
Noometry Index30.443.8
Released2024-12-032026-06-01
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window128K1M
Max output10K512K
Input $ / M tokens$0.035$0.30
Output $ / M tokens$0.14$1.20
Results tracked3241

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Category by category

Coding MiniMax-M3 leads

Amazon Nova Micro: 30.5 (#295), MiniMax-M3: 41.8 (#118)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkAmazon Nova MicroMiniMax-M3
LMArena Coding12181469
FrontierCode—14.7%
LMArena WebDev—1482
SciCode—47.1%
LiveBench Coding20.2%—
ALE-Bench—640.02

Agentic & Tool Use Too close to call

Amazon Nova Micro: 22.1 (#132), MiniMax-M3: 22.6 (#130)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkAmazon Nova MicroMiniMax-M3
APEX-Agents—37.7%
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard22.3%—
OSWorld 2.0—4.6%
GBAEval—0.9%
Vending-Bench 2—2,158

Reasoning MiniMax-M3 leads

Amazon Nova Micro: 17.4 (#294), MiniMax-M3: 30.1 (#87)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkAmazon Nova MicroMiniMax-M3
LMArena Hard Prompts11911447
SimpleBench—45.8%
NYT Connections (extended)—65.1%
CritPt—3.7%
Chess Puzzles—14%
LiveBench Reasoning25.1%—
Mystery Game Puzzles—8%
DTBench—78.9%
LiveBench Data Analysis34%—
LMCA—33.7%
Surface Evolver Bench—55%
Epoch Capabilities Index—146.95
ForecastBench—61.4
LiveBench29.6%—

Math MiniMax-M3 leads

Amazon Nova Micro: 26.9 (#254), MiniMax-M3: 40.0 (#95)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkAmazon Nova MicroMiniMax-M3
LMArena Math12061429
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025—71.1%
ProofBench—18%
Omni-MATH21.4%—
LiveBench Math34.5%—

Knowledge MiniMax-M3 leads

Amazon Nova Micro: 29.6 (#237), MiniMax-M3: 58.4 (#35)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkAmazon Nova MicroMiniMax-M3
LMArena Expert11841461
GPQA Diamond—90.9%
MMLU-Pro51.1%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate5.5%—
GPQA (HELM)38.3%—
MMLU70.8%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Amazon Nova Micro: —, MiniMax-M3: 40.2 (#51)

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkAmazon Nova MicroMiniMax-M3
LMArena Vision—1253
LMArena Document—1435

Multilingual MiniMax-M3 leads

Amazon Nova Micro: 36.5 (#239), MiniMax-M3: 53.0 (#75)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkAmazon Nova MicroMiniMax-M3
LMArena Non-English11861420
LMArena Chinese12091463
LMArena French12381447
LMArena German11921426
LMArena Japanese11541381
LMArena Korean11501372
LMArena Russian11851428
LMArena Spanish12251432

Instruction Following MiniMax-M3 leads

Amazon Nova Micro: 56.3 (#272), MiniMax-M3: 75.5 (#62)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkAmazon Nova MicroMiniMax-M3
LMArena Instruction Following11741433
LiveBench Instruction Following48%—
IFEval76%—

Long Context MiniMax-M3 leads

Amazon Nova Micro: 36.5 (#229), MiniMax-M3: 44.2 (#72)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkAmazon Nova MicroMiniMax-M3
LMArena Longer Query12051445

Writing & Preference MiniMax-M3 leads

Amazon Nova Micro: 39.5 (#247), MiniMax-M3: 62.1 (#83)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkAmazon Nova MicroMiniMax-M3
LMArena Text12081433
LMArena Creative Writing11721404
LMArena Multi-Turn11781442
WildBench74.3%—
EQ-Bench 4—1150
LiveBench Language15.8%—

Frequently asked questions

Is Amazon Nova Micro better than MiniMax-M3?

MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.8 to 30.4 on the Noometry Index. Amazon Nova Micro costs 8.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M3's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Amazon Nova Micro or MiniMax-M3?

Amazon Nova Micro is cheaper. It lists at $0.035 per million input tokens and $0.14 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M3 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

Is Amazon Nova Micro or MiniMax-M3 better for coding?

MiniMax-M3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.8 versus 30.5 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax-M3 does, with 1M tokens against 128K.

How many benchmarks do Amazon Nova Micro and MiniMax-M3 share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Amazon Nova Micro has 32 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M3 has 41.

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