Model comparison
MiniMax M1 vs Qwen3-30B-A3B
MiniMax M1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 38.5 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3-30B-A3B costs 4.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax M1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 18 shared benchmarks.
MiniMax
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax M1 scores higher in 3 categories and Qwen3-30B-A3B in 5 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in long context, where MiniMax M1 leads 41.4 to 31.0.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Fiction.LiveBench: 69.4% for MiniMax M1 and 40.6% for Qwen3-30B-A3B.
- Qwen3-30B-A3B is cheaper at $0.12 / $0.50 per million input/output tokens, against $0.40 / $2.20 for MiniMax M1.
- MiniMax M1 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 41K.
Side by side
| MiniMax M1 | Qwen3-30B-A3B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | MiniMax | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 39.7 | 38.5 |
| Released | 2025-06-13 | 2025-04-28 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 1M | 41K |
| Max output | 40K | 16K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.40 | $0.12 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $2.20 | $0.50 |
| Results tracked | 18 | 32 |
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Category by category
Coding MiniMax M1 leads
MiniMax M1: 39.2 (#149), Qwen3-30B-A3B: 37.0 (#188)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1359 | 1416 |
| SciCode | — | 33.3% |
| WeirdML | — | 29.8% |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
MiniMax M1: —, Qwen3-30B-A3B: 29.5 (#75)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 41.4% |
Reasoning MiniMax M1 leads
MiniMax M1: 25.8 (#125), Qwen3-30B-A3B: 21.6 (#193)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1340 | 1398 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 54.9% |
| CritPt | — | 0.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 8% |
| DTBench | — | 69.3% |
| LMCA | — | 22.4% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 139.63 |
Math Qwen3-30B-A3B leads
MiniMax M1: 34.8 (#152), Qwen3-30B-A3B: 36.0 (#133)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1360 | 1394 |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 47.8% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 70.3% |
Knowledge Qwen3-30B-A3B leads
MiniMax M1: 35.7 (#168), Qwen3-30B-A3B: 41.7 (#96)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1316 | 1395 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 70.1% |
| Confabulations | — | 12.3% |
Multilingual Qwen3-30B-A3B leads
MiniMax M1: 46.0 (#157), Qwen3-30B-A3B: 49.8 (#126)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1320 | 1372 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1361 | 1434 |
| LMArena French | 1369 | 1419 |
| LMArena German | 1350 | 1379 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1220 | 1338 |
| LMArena Korean | 1263 | 1333 |
| LMArena Russian | 1330 | 1369 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1354 | 1403 |
Instruction Following Qwen3-30B-A3B leads
MiniMax M1: 69.5 (#169), Qwen3-30B-A3B: 72.2 (#137)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1312 | 1364 |
Long Context MiniMax M1 leads
MiniMax M1: 41.4 (#136), Qwen3-30B-A3B: 31.0 (#278)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | 69.4% | 40.6% |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1326 | 1379 |
Writing & Preference Qwen3-30B-A3B leads
MiniMax M1: 53.3 (#155), Qwen3-30B-A3B: 55.9 (#138)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1343 | 1384 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1298 | 1318 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1335 | 1378 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | — | 75.3% |
Frequently asked questions
Is MiniMax M1 better than Qwen3-30B-A3B?
MiniMax M1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 38.5 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3-30B-A3B costs 4.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax M1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, MiniMax M1 or Qwen3-30B-A3B?
Qwen3-30B-A3B is cheaper. It lists at $0.12 per million input tokens and $0.50 per million output tokens; MiniMax M1 lists at $0.40 and $2.20.
Is MiniMax M1 or Qwen3-30B-A3B better for coding?
MiniMax M1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.2 versus 37.0 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
MiniMax M1 does, with 1M tokens against 41K.
How many benchmarks do MiniMax M1 and Qwen3-30B-A3B share?
18 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax M1 has 18 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3-30B-A3B has 32.