Noometry

Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs MiniMax-M2.1

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.5 to 38.4 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.1 costs 7.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 2 shared benchmarks.

Claude Sonnet 5.5 Anthropic

60.5

Rank #10 Confirmed

MiniMax-M2.1 MiniMax

38.4

Rank #177 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher in 5 categories and MiniMax-M2.1 in 0 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads 88.7 to 35.6.
  • MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $10 for Claude Sonnet 5.5.
  • Claude Sonnet 5.5 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 205K.
  • MiniMax-M2.1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Sonnet 5.5MiniMax-M2.1
ProviderAnthropicMiniMax
Noometry Index60.538.4
Released2026-09-282025-12-23
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M205K
Max output128K131K
Input $ / M tokens$2$0.30
Output $ / M tokens$10$1.20
Results tracked1622

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Category by category

Coding Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 65.5 (#6), MiniMax-M2.1: 40.1 (#132)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena WebDev16991384
ALE-Bench1,819623.83
FrontierCode52.1%—
CursorBench55.5%—
FrontierSWE61.9%—
SciCode61%—
LMArena Coding—1421

Agentic & Tool Use Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 44.9 (#14), MiniMax-M2.1: 27.7 (#91)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5MiniMax-M2.1
Terminal-Bench—36.6%
APEX-Agents75.5%—

Reasoning Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 52.4 (#29), MiniMax-M2.1: 15.8 (#301)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5MiniMax-M2.1
NYT Connections (extended)—11.2%
CritPt31.4%—
LMArena Hard Prompts—1410
Mystery Game Puzzles65%—

Math Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 88.7 (#4), MiniMax-M2.1: 35.6 (#142)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5MiniMax-M2.1
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)88.8%—
FrontierMath Tier 480.5%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025100%—
ProofBench100%—
LMArena Math—1396

Knowledge Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#11), MiniMax-M2.1: 37.7 (#143)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5MiniMax-M2.1
GPQA Diamond95.6%—
SimpleQA Verified46.5%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate—11.8%
LMArena Expert—1432

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 53.2 (#5), MiniMax-M2.1: —

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5MiniMax-M2.1
Furniture Assembly75%—

Multilingual Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5.5: —, MiniMax-M2.1: 50.2 (#123)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Non-English—1378
LMArena Chinese—1430
LMArena French—1405
LMArena German—1380
LMArena Japanese—1287
LMArena Korean—1297
LMArena Russian—1386
LMArena Spanish—1396

Instruction Following Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5.5: —, MiniMax-M2.1: 74.0 (#108)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Instruction Following—1399

Long Context Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5.5: —, MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#98)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Longer Query—1416

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5.5: —, MiniMax-M2.1: 58.5 (#114)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Text—1392
LMArena Creative Writing—1362
LMArena Multi-Turn—1396

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 better than MiniMax-M2.1?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.5 to 38.4 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.1 costs 7.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5.5 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 5.5 lists at $2 and $10.

Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 or MiniMax-M2.1 better for coding?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 65.5 versus 40.1 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 does, with 1M tokens against 205K.

How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5.5 and MiniMax-M2.1 share?

2 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5.5 has 16 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M2.1 has 22.

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