Model comparison
MiniMax M1 vs Qwen3.6 Max Preview
Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.5 to 40.3 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax M1 costs 3.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Max Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 14 shared benchmarks.
MiniMax
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 14 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax M1 scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.6 Max Preview in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads 57.6 to 36.4.
- MiniMax M1 is cheaper at $0.55 / $2.20 per million input/output tokens, against $1.30 / $7.80 for Qwen3.6 Max Preview.
- MiniMax M1 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
- MiniMax M1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| MiniMax M1 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | MiniMax | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 40.3 | 51.5 |
| Released | 2025-06-13 | 2026-04-20 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Max output | 40K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.55 | $1.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $2.20 | $7.80 |
| Results tracked | 18 | 29 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
MiniMax M1: 39.9 (#153), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 48.7 (#54)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1359 | 1471 |
| SWE-bench Verified | — | 76.7% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1482 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
MiniMax M1: —, Qwen3.6 Max Preview: —
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 4,254 |
Reasoning Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
MiniMax M1: 26.9 (#126), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 41.7 (#53)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1339 | 1457 |
| SimpleBench | — | 63% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 74.1% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 20% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 19% |
| DTBench | — | 87.2% |
| LMCA | — | 42.5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 149.24 |
Math Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
MiniMax M1: 37.5 (#151), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.1 (#46)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1361 | 1465 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 91.1% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 23.1% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 4.2% |
Knowledge Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
MiniMax M1: 36.4 (#170), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 57.6 (#39)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1317 | 1478 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 87.4% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 52% |
Multilingual Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
MiniMax M1: 45.8 (#163), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.2 (#48)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1319 | 1437 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1360 | 1487 |
| LMArena French | 1370 | 1449 |
| LMArena Russian | 1329 | 1445 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1353 | 1454 |
| LMArena German | 1350 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1217 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1266 | — |
Instruction Following Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
MiniMax M1: 69.3 (#174), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 75.7 (#55)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1312 | 1438 |
Long Context Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
MiniMax M1: 41.4 (#141), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 44.6 (#61)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1326 | 1457 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 69.4% | — |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
MiniMax M1: 53.1 (#161), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 63.8 (#60)
| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1343 | 1447 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1298 | 1435 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1335 | 1456 |
Frequently asked questions
Is MiniMax M1 better than Qwen3.6 Max Preview?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.5 to 40.3 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax M1 costs 3.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Max Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, MiniMax M1 or Qwen3.6 Max Preview?
MiniMax M1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.55 per million input tokens and $2.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 Max Preview lists at $1.30 and $7.80.
Is MiniMax M1 or Qwen3.6 Max Preview better for coding?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 48.7 versus 39.9 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 Qwen3.6 Max Preview share?
14 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax M1 has 18 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Max Preview has 29.