Model comparison
Magistral Small vs MiniMax-M3
MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.8 to 30.2 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 7 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AI
MiniMaxSummary
- They share 7 benchmarks with published results for both. Magistral Small scores higher in 0 categories and MiniMax-M3 in 4 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where MiniMax-M3 leads 58.4 to 30.9.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 30% for Magistral Small and 71.1% for MiniMax-M3.
- MiniMax-M3 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $1.50 for Magistral Small.
- MiniMax-M3 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 128K.
Side by side
| Magistral Small | MiniMax-M3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | MiniMax |
| Noometry Index | 30.2 | 43.8 |
| Released | 2025-06-10 | 2026-06-01 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 128K | 1M |
| Max output | 40K | 512K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.50 | $0.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $1.50 | $1.20 |
| Results tracked | 10 | 41 |
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Category by category
Coding MiniMax-M3 leads
Magistral Small: 38.4 (#176), MiniMax-M3: 41.8 (#118)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 35.2% | 47.1% |
| FrontierCode | — | 14.7% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1482 |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1469 |
| ALE-Bench | — | 640.02 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, MiniMax-M3: 22.6 (#130)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | — | 37.7% |
| OSWorld 2.0 | — | 4.6% |
| GBAEval | — | 0.9% |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 2,158 |
Reasoning MiniMax-M3 leads
Magistral Small: 6.8 (#350), MiniMax-M3: 30.1 (#87)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 0.3% | 3.7% |
| Chess Puzzles | 3% | 14% |
| DTBench | 61.3% | 78.9% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 133.19 | 146.95 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0% | — |
| SimpleBench | — | 45.8% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 6.3% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 65.1% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 5% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1447 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 8% |
| LMCA | — | 33.7% |
| Surface Evolver Bench | — | 55% |
| ForecastBench | — | 61.4 |
Math MiniMax-M3 leads
Magistral Small: 26.2 (#261), MiniMax-M3: 40.0 (#95)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 30% | 71.1% |
| ProofBench | — | 18% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1429 |
Knowledge MiniMax-M3 leads
Magistral Small: 30.9 (#223), MiniMax-M3: 58.4 (#35)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 56.1% | 90.9% |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1461 |
Multimodal Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, MiniMax-M3: 40.2 (#51)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1253 |
| LMArena Document | — | 1435 |
Multilingual Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, MiniMax-M3: 53.0 (#75)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1420 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1463 |
| LMArena French | — | 1447 |
| LMArena German | — | 1426 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1381 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1372 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1428 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1432 |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, MiniMax-M3: 75.5 (#62)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1433 |
Long Context Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, MiniMax-M3: 44.2 (#72)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1445 |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, MiniMax-M3: 62.1 (#83)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1433 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1404 |
| EQ-Bench 4 | — | 1150 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1442 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Magistral Small better than MiniMax-M3?
MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.8 to 30.2 on the Noometry Index.
Which is cheaper, Magistral Small or MiniMax-M3?
MiniMax-M3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Magistral Small lists at $0.50 and $1.50.
Is Magistral Small or MiniMax-M3 better for coding?
MiniMax-M3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.8 versus 38.4 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
MiniMax-M3 does, with 1M tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Magistral Small and MiniMax-M3 share?
7 benchmarks have published results for both models. Magistral Small has 10 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M3 has 41.