Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs MiniMax-M3

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 61.9 to 43.8 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M3 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 October 10, 2026. 25 shared benchmarks.

Claude Sonnet 5.5 Anthropic

61.9

Rank #10 Confirmed

MiniMax-M3

MiniMax

43.8

Rank #85 Confirmed

Summary

They share 25 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher in 10 categories and MiniMax-M3 in 0 categories; 10 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in math, where Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads 87.9 to 40.0.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is ProofBench: 100% for Claude Sonnet 5.5 and 18% for MiniMax-M3.
MiniMax-M3 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $10 for Claude Sonnet 5.5.
MiniMax-M3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Sonnet 5.5 and MiniMax-M3 specifications
	Claude Sonnet 5.5	MiniMax-M3
Provider	Anthropic	MiniMax
Noometry Index	61.9	43.8
Released	2026-09-28	2026-06-01
Weights	Proprietary	Open
Context window	1M	1M
Max output	128K	512K
Input $ / M tokens	$2	$0.30
Output $ / M tokens	$10	$1.20
Results tracked	32	41

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Category by category

Coding Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 67.3 (#6), MiniMax-M3: 41.8 (#118)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	MiniMax-M3
FrontierCode	52.1%	14.7%
LMArena WebDev	1774	1482
SciCode	61%	47.1%
LMArena Coding	1513	1469
ALE-Bench	1,819	640.02
CursorBench	55.5%	—
FrontierSWE	61.9%	—

Agentic & Tool Use Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 45.0 (#16), MiniMax-M3: 22.6 (#130)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	MiniMax-M3
APEX-Agents	75.5%	37.7%
OSWorld 2.0	—	4.6%
GBAEval	—	0.9%
Vending-Bench 2	—	2,158

Reasoning Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 54.0 (#28), MiniMax-M3: 30.1 (#87)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	MiniMax-M3
NYT Connections (extended)	80.5%	65.1%
CritPt	31.4%	3.7%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1495	1447
Mystery Game Puzzles	65%	8%
Epoch Capabilities Index	165.03	146.95
SimpleBench	—	45.8%
Chess Puzzles	—	14%
DTBench	—	78.9%
LMCA	—	33.7%
Surface Evolver Bench	—	55%
ForecastBench	—	61.4

Math Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 87.9 (#6), MiniMax-M3: 40.0 (#95)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	MiniMax-M3
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	100%	71.1%
ProofBench	100%	18%
LMArena Math	1510	1429
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)	88.8%	—
FrontierMath Tier 4	80.5%	—
FrontierMath Erdős	2.9%	—

Knowledge Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#12), MiniMax-M3: 58.4 (#35)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	MiniMax-M3
GPQA Diamond	95.6%	90.9%
LMArena Expert	1540	1461
SimpleQA Verified	46.5%	—

Multimodal Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 51.5 (#6), MiniMax-M3: 40.2 (#51)

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	MiniMax-M3
LMArena Vision	1289	1253
Furniture Assembly	75%	—
LMArena Document	—	1435

Multilingual Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 55.3 (#30), MiniMax-M3: 53.0 (#75)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	MiniMax-M3
LMArena Non-English	1452	1420
LMArena Chinese	1522	1463
LMArena Russian	1451	1428
LMArena French	—	1447
LMArena German	—	1426
LMArena Japanese	—	1381
LMArena Korean	—	1372
LMArena Spanish	—	1432

Instruction Following Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 78.3 (#11), MiniMax-M3: 75.5 (#62)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	MiniMax-M3
LMArena Instruction Following	1495	1433

Long Context Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 45.9 (#28), MiniMax-M3: 44.2 (#72)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	MiniMax-M3
LMArena Longer Query	1498	1445

Writing & Preference Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#40), MiniMax-M3: 62.1 (#83)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	MiniMax-M3
LMArena Text	1471	1433
LMArena Creative Writing	1465	1404
LMArena Multi-Turn	1474	1442
EQ-Bench 4	—	1150

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 better than MiniMax-M3?

Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or MiniMax-M3?

MiniMax-M3 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-M3 better for coding?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 67.3 versus 41.8 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 1M tokens.

How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5.5 and MiniMax-M3 share?

25 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5.5 has 32 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M3 has 41.