Model comparison
Claude Sonnet 5 vs MiniMax-M2.5
Claude Sonnet 5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.6 to 38.3 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.5 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 . 24 shared benchmarks.
MiniMaxSummary
- They share 24 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 5 scores higher in 9 categories and MiniMax-M2.5 in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Claude Sonnet 5 leads 66.2 to 26.9.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is ProofBench: 77% for Claude Sonnet 5 and 4% for MiniMax-M2.5.
- MiniMax-M2.5 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-M2.5 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Claude Sonnet 5 | MiniMax-M2.5 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | MiniMax |
| Noometry Index | 54.6 | 38.3 |
| Released | 2026-06-29 | 2026-02-12 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1M | 205K |
| Max output | 128K | 131K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $2 | $0.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $10 | $1.20 |
| Results tracked | 51 | 33 |
Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry
Category by category
Coding Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 55.5 (#26), MiniMax-M2.5: 48.1 (#58)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1541 | 1387 |
| LMArena Coding | 1483 | 1381 |
| ALE-Bench | 1,463 | 618.17 |
| DeepSWE | 53.8% | — |
| FrontierCode | 42.7% | — |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | — | 75.8% |
| CursorBench | 34.1% | — |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | — | 68.3% |
| SciCode | 54.3% | — |
| GSO | 37.3% | — |
| WeirdML | 68.8% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 42.8 (#18), MiniMax-M2.5: 30.4 (#77)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | 6,378 | -23.16 |
| Terminal-Bench | — | 42.7% |
| APEX-Agents | 54.5% | — |
| GBAEval | 65.3% | — |
| LMArena Search | 1194 | — |
Reasoning Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 49.1 (#39), MiniMax-M2.5: 17.5 (#292)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| NYT Connections (extended) | 75.1% | 16.8% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1461 | 1372 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 156.21 | 146.68 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 4.9% |
| SimpleBench | 60.6% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 55.2% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 63.7% |
| CritPt | 16.9% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 35% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 35% | — |
| DTBench | 92.5% | — |
| LMCA | 50% | — |
| Surface Evolver Bench | 60% | — |
| Bench to the Future 3 | 0.14 | — |
| ForecastBench | 61.1 | — |
Math Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 66.2 (#27), MiniMax-M2.5: 26.9 (#253)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| ProofBench | 77% | 4% |
| LMArena Math | 1467 | 1378 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 65.6% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 29.3% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 94.7% | — |
Knowledge Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 55.6 (#47), MiniMax-M2.5: 39.2 (#135)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1490 | 1379 |
| GPQA Diamond | 90.5% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 33.7% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 9.1% |
Multimodal Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5: 42.4 (#31), MiniMax-M2.5: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1274 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 24.9% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1466 | — |
Multilingual Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 53.8 (#55), MiniMax-M2.5: 47.1 (#152)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1431 | 1338 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1477 | 1393 |
| LMArena French | 1460 | 1362 |
| LMArena German | 1440 | 1362 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1422 | 1171 |
| LMArena Korean | 1411 | 1232 |
| LMArena Russian | 1451 | 1358 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1437 | 1354 |
Instruction Following Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 76.3 (#41), MiniMax-M2.5: 71.5 (#148)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1452 | 1353 |
Long Context Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 44.8 (#55), MiniMax-M2.5: 37.5 (#216)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1463 | 1366 |
| CL-bench | — | 11.4% |
| CL-bench Life | — | 6.3% |
Writing & Preference Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 69.2 (#25), MiniMax-M2.5: 53.9 (#153)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1442 | 1359 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1416 | 1331 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1794 | 1361 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1454 | 1364 |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1236 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Sonnet 5 better than MiniMax-M2.5?
Claude Sonnet 5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.6 to 38.3 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.5 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-M2.5?
MiniMax-M2.5 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-M2.5 better for coding?
Claude Sonnet 5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 55.5 versus 48.1 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-M2.5 share?
24 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5 has 51 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M2.5 has 33.