Model comparison

MiniMax M1 vs Qwen3.5-9B

MiniMax M1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.3 to 33.8 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5-9B costs 8.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax M1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 12, 2026. 0 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax M1

MiniMax

40.3

Rank #150 Confirmed

Qwen3.5-9B

Alibaba (Qwen)

33.8

Rank #236 Confirmed

Summary

The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.5-9B leads 46.0 to 36.4.
Qwen3.5-9B is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.55 / $2.20 for MiniMax M1.
MiniMax M1 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.

Side by side

MiniMax M1 and Qwen3.5-9B specifications
	MiniMax M1	Qwen3.5-9B
Provider	MiniMax	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	40.3	33.8
Released	2025-06-13	2026-02-23
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	1M	262K
Max output	40K	66K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.55	$0.10
Output $ / M tokens	$2.20	$0.15
Results tracked	18	10

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Category by category

Coding MiniMax M1 leads

MiniMax M1: 39.9 (#153), Qwen3.5-9B: 35.9 (#217)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3.5-9B
SciCode	—	27.5%
LMArena Coding	1359	—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

MiniMax M1: —, Qwen3.5-9B: 14.5 (#151)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3.5-9B
Terminal-Bench	—	9.2%

Reasoning MiniMax M1 leads

MiniMax M1: 26.9 (#126), Qwen3.5-9B: 23.1 (#182)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3.5-9B
CritPt	—	0.3%
Chess Puzzles	—	12%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1339	—
DTBench	—	71.2%
LMCA	—	24.5%
Epoch Capabilities Index	—	139.46

Math MiniMax M1 leads

MiniMax M1: 37.5 (#151), Qwen3.5-9B: 34.8 (#192)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3.5-9B
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions	—	48.5%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	61.7%
LMArena Math	1361	—

Knowledge Qwen3.5-9B leads

MiniMax M1: 36.4 (#170), Qwen3.5-9B: 46.0 (#84)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3.5-9B
GPQA Diamond	—	79%
LMArena Expert	1317	—

Multilingual Not comparable

MiniMax M1: 45.8 (#163), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Non-English	1319	—
LMArena Chinese	1360	—
LMArena French	1370	—
LMArena German	1350	—
LMArena Japanese	1217	—
LMArena Korean	1266	—
LMArena Russian	1329	—
LMArena Spanish	1353	—

Instruction Following Not comparable

MiniMax M1: 69.3 (#174), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Instruction Following	1312	—

Long Context Not comparable

MiniMax M1: 41.4 (#141), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3.5-9B
Fiction.LiveBench	69.4%	—
LMArena Longer Query	1326	—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

MiniMax M1: 53.1 (#161), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Text	1343	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1298	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	1335	—

Frequently asked questions

Is MiniMax M1 better than Qwen3.5-9B?

Which is cheaper, MiniMax M1 or Qwen3.5-9B?

Qwen3.5-9B is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; MiniMax M1 lists at $0.55 and $2.20.

Is MiniMax M1 or Qwen3.5-9B better for coding?

MiniMax M1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.9 versus 35.9 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax M1 does, with 1M tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks do MiniMax M1 and Qwen3.5-9B share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax M1 has 18 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-9B has 10.