Model comparison

MiniMax M1 vs Mistral Small 3.1

MiniMax M1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.3 to 31.7 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3.1 costs 2.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax M1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 17 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax M1

MiniMax

40.3

Rank #150 Confirmed

Mistral Small 3.1

Mistral AI

31.7

Rank #269 Confirmed

Summary

They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax M1 scores higher in 8 categories and Mistral Small 3.1 in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in math, where MiniMax M1 leads 37.5 to 14.7.
Mistral Small 3.1 is cheaper at $0.35 / $0.56 per million input/output tokens, against $0.55 / $2.20 for MiniMax M1.
MiniMax M1 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 128K.

Side by side

MiniMax M1 and Mistral Small 3.1 specifications
	MiniMax M1	Mistral Small 3.1
Provider	MiniMax	Mistral AI
Noometry Index	40.3	31.7
Released	2025-06-13	2025-03-17
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	1M	128K
Max output	40K	102K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.55	$0.35
Output $ / M tokens	$2.20	$0.56
Results tracked	18	28

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Category by category

Coding MiniMax M1 leads

MiniMax M1: 39.9 (#153), Mistral Small 3.1: 38.3 (#179)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Coding	1359	1309

Reasoning MiniMax M1 leads

MiniMax M1: 26.9 (#126), Mistral Small 3.1: 19.7 (#254)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Hard Prompts	1339	1278
Chess Puzzles	—	1%
Epoch Capabilities Index	—	127.48

Math MiniMax M1 leads

MiniMax M1: 37.5 (#151), Mistral Small 3.1: 14.7 (#301)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Math	1361	1262
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	3.9%
Omni-MATH	—	24.8%

Knowledge MiniMax M1 leads

MiniMax M1: 36.4 (#170), Mistral Small 3.1: 22.6 (#271)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Expert	1317	1257
GPQA Diamond	—	41.9%
MMLU-Pro	—	61%
GPQA (HELM)	—	39.2%

Multimodal Not comparable

MiniMax M1: —, Mistral Small 3.1: 33.2 (#99)

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Vision	—	1136

Multilingual MiniMax M1 leads

MiniMax M1: 45.8 (#163), Mistral Small 3.1: 41.2 (#209)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Non-English	1319	1255
LMArena Chinese	1360	1253
LMArena French	1370	1273
LMArena German	1350	1266
LMArena Japanese	1217	1208
LMArena Korean	1266	1206
LMArena Russian	1329	1263
LMArena Spanish	1353	1283

Instruction Following MiniMax M1 leads

MiniMax M1: 69.3 (#174), Mistral Small 3.1: 63.6 (#230)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Instruction Following	1312	1264
IFEval	—	75%

Long Context MiniMax M1 leads

MiniMax M1: 41.4 (#141), Mistral Small 3.1: 39.5 (#178)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Longer Query	1326	1299
Fiction.LiveBench	69.4%	—

Writing & Preference MiniMax M1 leads

MiniMax M1: 53.1 (#161), Mistral Small 3.1: 37.0 (#259)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Text	1343	1277
LMArena Creative Writing	1298	1253
LMArena Multi-Turn	1335	1270
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	—	761
WildBench	—	78.8%

Frequently asked questions

Is MiniMax M1 better than Mistral Small 3.1?

Which is cheaper, MiniMax M1 or Mistral Small 3.1?

Mistral Small 3.1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.35 per million input tokens and $0.56 per million output tokens; MiniMax M1 lists at $0.55 and $2.20.

Is MiniMax M1 or Mistral Small 3.1 better for coding?

MiniMax M1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.9 versus 38.3 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax M1 does, with 1M tokens against 128K.

How many benchmarks do MiniMax M1 and Mistral Small 3.1 share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax M1 has 18 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3.1 has 28.