Noometry

Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 5 vs MiniMax-M2

Claude Sonnet 5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.6 to 37.4 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2 costs 7.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 18 shared benchmarks.

Claude Sonnet 5 Anthropic

54.6

Rank #29 Confirmed

MiniMax-M2 MiniMax

37.4

Rank #204 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 5 scores higher in 9 categories and MiniMax-M2 in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Claude Sonnet 5 leads 49.1 to 19.4.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is NYT Connections (extended): 75.1% for Claude Sonnet 5 and 14.8% for MiniMax-M2.
  • MiniMax-M2 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $10 for Claude Sonnet 5.
  • Claude Sonnet 5 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 205K.
  • MiniMax-M2 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Sonnet 5MiniMax-M2
ProviderAnthropicMiniMax
Noometry Index54.637.4
Released2026-06-292025-10-27
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M205K
Max output128K131K
Input $ / M tokens$2$0.30
Output $ / M tokens$10$1.20
Results tracked5121

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Category by category

Coding Claude Sonnet 5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5: 55.5 (#26), MiniMax-M2: 39.3 (#159)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5MiniMax-M2
LMArena WebDev15411297
LMArena Coding14831370
DeepSWE53.8%—
FrontierCode42.7%—
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)—61%
CursorBench34.1%—
SciCode54.3%—
GSO37.3%—
WeirdML68.8%—
ALE-Bench1,463—

Agentic & Tool Use Claude Sonnet 5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5: 42.8 (#18), MiniMax-M2: 25.1 (#109)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5MiniMax-M2
Vending-Bench 26,378160.6
Terminal-Bench—30%
APEX-Agents54.5%—
GBAEval65.3%—
LMArena Search1194—

Reasoning Claude Sonnet 5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5: 49.1 (#39), MiniMax-M2: 19.4 (#258)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5MiniMax-M2
NYT Connections (extended)75.1%14.8%
LMArena Hard Prompts14611357
SimpleBench60.6%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark—57.8%
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-M2: 37.3 (#160)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5MiniMax-M2
LMArena Math14671352
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-M2: 37.0 (#163)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5MiniMax-M2
LMArena Expert14901337
GPQA Diamond90.5%—
SimpleQA Verified33.7%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5: 42.4 (#31), MiniMax-M2: —

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5MiniMax-M2
LMArena Vision1274—
Blueprint-Bench 224.9%—
LMArena Document1466—

Multilingual Claude Sonnet 5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5: 53.8 (#55), MiniMax-M2: 45.3 (#171)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5MiniMax-M2
LMArena Non-English14311313
LMArena Chinese14771366
LMArena French14601335
LMArena German14401355
LMArena Russian14511331
LMArena Spanish14371326
LMArena Japanese1422—
LMArena Korean1411—

Instruction Following Claude Sonnet 5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5: 76.3 (#41), MiniMax-M2: 70.2 (#166)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5MiniMax-M2
LMArena Instruction Following14521328

Long Context Claude Sonnet 5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5: 44.8 (#55), MiniMax-M2: 40.5 (#153)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5MiniMax-M2
LMArena Longer Query14631331

Writing & Preference Claude Sonnet 5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5: 69.2 (#25), MiniMax-M2: 53.0 (#162)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5MiniMax-M2
LMArena Text14421340
LMArena Creative Writing14161286
LMArena Multi-Turn14541361
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1794—
EQ-Bench 41236—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Sonnet 5 better than MiniMax-M2?

Claude Sonnet 5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.6 to 37.4 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2 costs 7.6× 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-M2?

MiniMax-M2 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 5 lists at $2 and $10.

Is Claude Sonnet 5 or MiniMax-M2 better for coding?

Claude Sonnet 5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 55.5 versus 39.3 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Sonnet 5 does, with 1M tokens against 205K.

How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5 and MiniMax-M2 share?

18 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5 has 51 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M2 has 21.

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