Noometry

Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs MiniMax-M2.1

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.3 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.1 costs 11× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 22 shared benchmarks.

Claude Sonnet 4.6 Anthropic

50.3

Rank #50 Confirmed

MiniMax-M2.1 MiniMax

38.9

Rank #178 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 22 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores higher in 9 categories and MiniMax-M2.1 in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads 46.1 to 16.6.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is NYT Connections (extended): 80.9% for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and 11.2% for MiniMax-M2.1.
  • MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $3 / $15 for Claude Sonnet 4.6.
  • Claude Sonnet 4.6 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 205K.
  • MiniMax-M2.1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Sonnet 4.6MiniMax-M2.1
ProviderAnthropicMiniMax
Noometry Index50.338.9
Released2026-02-172025-12-23
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M205K
Max output128K131K
Input $ / M tokens$3$0.30
Output $ / M tokens$15$1.20
Results tracked5722

Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry

Category by category

Coding Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 46.3 (#67), MiniMax-M2.1: 40.4 (#143)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena WebDev15221384
LMArena Coding15041421
ALE-Bench1,327623.83
SWE-bench Verified75.2%—
DeepSWE29.9%—
FrontierCode24.3%—
SciCode46.8%—
WeirdML66.1%—

Agentic & Tool Use Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 39.1 (#28), MiniMax-M2.1: 27.9 (#98)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6MiniMax-M2.1
Terminal-Bench53.4%36.6%
APEX-Agents43%—
OSWorld 2.09.3%—
DeepResearch Bench54.9%—
OSWorld72.1%—
ExploitBench23.6%—
GBAEval48.8%—
GDP.pdf18%—
LMArena Search1221—
Vending-Bench 27,204—

Reasoning Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 46.1 (#45), MiniMax-M2.1: 16.6 (#302)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6MiniMax-M2.1
NYT Connections (extended)80.9%11.2%
LMArena Hard Prompts14841411
ARC-AGI-260.4%—
ARC-AGI-186.5%—
CritPt3.1%—
Chess Puzzles13%—
Thematic Generalization76.3%—
Mystery Game Puzzles16%—
DTBench89.9%—
LMCA46.5%—
Epoch Capabilities Index152.24—
ForecastBench62—

Math Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 52.9 (#49), MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#138)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Math14621397
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202585.8%—
ProofBench45%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)32.4%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)8.3%—

Knowledge Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 51.7 (#65), MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#147)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6MiniMax-M2.1
Vectara Hallucination Rate10.6%11.8%
LMArena Expert15001431
GPQA Diamond87.4%—
SimpleQA Verified35.5%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 38.0 (#68), MiniMax-M2.1: —

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Vision1283—
Blueprint-Bench 26.7%—
LMArena Document1482—

Multilingual Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 54.4 (#41), MiniMax-M2.1: 50.0 (#128)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Non-English14401378
LMArena Chinese14911430
LMArena French14651404
LMArena German14281381
LMArena Japanese14201287
LMArena Korean14111298
LMArena Russian14401387
LMArena Spanish14641397

Instruction Following Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 77.4 (#25), MiniMax-M2.1: 73.8 (#112)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Instruction Following14751400

Long Context Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 45.3 (#44), MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#101)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Longer Query14791416

Writing & Preference Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 70.2 (#22), MiniMax-M2.1: 58.3 (#120)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Text14581392
LMArena Creative Writing14351361
LMArena Multi-Turn14641396
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1810—
EQ-Bench 41207—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 better than MiniMax-M2.1?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.3 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.1 costs 11× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or MiniMax-M2.1?

MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 4.6 lists at $3 and $15.

Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 or MiniMax-M2.1 better for coding?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 46.3 versus 40.4 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 does, with 1M tokens against 205K.

How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 4.6 and MiniMax-M2.1 share?

22 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 4.6 has 57 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M2.1 has 22.

Related comparisons

Go deeper