Noometry

Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 5 vs MiniMax M1

Claude Sonnet 5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.6 to 40.3 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax M1 costs 4.2× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.

Claude Sonnet 5 Anthropic

54.6

Rank #29 Confirmed

MiniMax M1 MiniMax

40.3

Rank #150 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 5 scores higher in 8 categories and MiniMax M1 in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Claude Sonnet 5 leads 66.2 to 37.5.
  • MiniMax M1 is cheaper at $0.55 / $2.20 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $10 for Claude Sonnet 5.
  • MiniMax M1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Sonnet 5MiniMax M1
ProviderAnthropicMiniMax
Noometry Index54.640.3
Released2026-06-292025-06-13
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M1M
Max output128K40K
Input $ / M tokens$2$0.55
Output $ / M tokens$10$2.20
Results tracked5118

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Category by category

Coding Claude Sonnet 5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5: 55.5 (#26), MiniMax M1: 39.9 (#153)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5MiniMax M1
LMArena Coding14831359
DeepSWE53.8%—
FrontierCode42.7%—
CursorBench34.1%—
LMArena WebDev1541—
SciCode54.3%—
GSO37.3%—
WeirdML68.8%—
ALE-Bench1,463—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5: 42.8 (#18), MiniMax M1: —

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5MiniMax M1
APEX-Agents54.5%—
GBAEval65.3%—
LMArena Search1194—
Vending-Bench 26,378—

Reasoning Claude Sonnet 5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5: 49.1 (#39), MiniMax M1: 26.9 (#126)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5MiniMax M1
LMArena Hard Prompts14611339
SimpleBench60.6%—
NYT Connections (extended)75.1%—
CritPt16.9%—
Chess Puzzles35%—
Mystery Game Puzzles35%—
DTBench92.5%—
LMCA50%—
Surface Evolver Bench60%—
Bench to the Future 30.14—
Epoch Capabilities Index156.21—
ForecastBench61.1—

Math Claude Sonnet 5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5: 66.2 (#27), MiniMax M1: 37.5 (#151)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5MiniMax M1
LMArena Math14671361
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)65.6%—
FrontierMath Tier 429.3%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202594.7%—
ProofBench77%—

Knowledge Claude Sonnet 5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5: 55.6 (#47), MiniMax M1: 36.4 (#170)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5MiniMax M1
LMArena Expert14901317
GPQA Diamond90.5%—
SimpleQA Verified33.7%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5: 42.4 (#31), MiniMax M1: —

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5MiniMax M1
LMArena Vision1274—
Blueprint-Bench 224.9%—
LMArena Document1466—

Multilingual Claude Sonnet 5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5: 53.8 (#55), MiniMax M1: 45.8 (#163)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5MiniMax M1
LMArena Non-English14311319
LMArena Chinese14771360
LMArena French14601370
LMArena German14401350
LMArena Japanese14221217
LMArena Korean14111266
LMArena Russian14511329
LMArena Spanish14371353

Instruction Following Claude Sonnet 5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5: 76.3 (#41), MiniMax M1: 69.3 (#174)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5MiniMax M1
LMArena Instruction Following14521312

Long Context Claude Sonnet 5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5: 44.8 (#55), MiniMax M1: 41.4 (#141)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5MiniMax M1
LMArena Longer Query14631326
Fiction.LiveBench—69.4%

Writing & Preference Claude Sonnet 5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5: 69.2 (#25), MiniMax M1: 53.1 (#161)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5MiniMax M1
LMArena Text14421343
LMArena Creative Writing14161298
LMArena Multi-Turn14541335
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1794—
EQ-Bench 41236—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Sonnet 5 better than MiniMax M1?

Claude Sonnet 5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.6 to 40.3 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax M1 costs 4.2× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5 or MiniMax M1?

MiniMax M1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.55 per million input tokens and $2.20 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 5 lists at $2 and $10.

Is Claude Sonnet 5 or MiniMax M1 better for coding?

Claude Sonnet 5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 55.5 versus 39.9 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 1M tokens.

How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5 and MiniMax M1 share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5 has 51 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax M1 has 18.

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