Model comparison

MiniMax-M3 vs Mistral Small 3

MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.8 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 9.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M3's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 11, 2026. 20 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax-M3

MiniMax

43.8

Rank #85 Confirmed

Mistral Small 3

Mistral AI

31.2

Rank #278 Confirmed

Summary

They share 20 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M3 scores higher in 8 categories and Mistral Small 3 in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in knowledge, where MiniMax-M3 leads 58.4 to 25.1.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 71.1% for MiniMax-M3 and 6.7% for Mistral Small 3.
Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M3.
MiniMax-M3 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 33K.

Side by side

MiniMax-M3 and Mistral Small 3 specifications
	MiniMax-M3	Mistral Small 3
Provider	MiniMax	Mistral AI
Noometry Index	43.8	31.2
Released	2026-06-01	2025-01-30
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	1M	33K
Max output	512K	16K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.30	$0.05
Output $ / M tokens	$1.20	$0.08
Results tracked	41	24

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Category by category

Coding MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 41.8 (#118), Mistral Small 3: 36.5 (#207)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Mistral Small 3
LMArena Coding	1469	1246
FrontierCode	14.7%	—
LMArena WebDev	1482	—
SciCode	47.1%	—
BigCodeBench Instruct	—	45.3%
BigCodeBench Complete	—	50.4%
ALE-Bench	640.02	—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

MiniMax-M3: 22.6 (#130), Mistral Small 3: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Mistral Small 3
APEX-Agents	37.7%	—
OSWorld 2.0	4.6%	—
GBAEval	0.9%	—
Vending-Bench 2	2,158	—

Reasoning MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 30.1 (#87), Mistral Small 3: 18.9 (#273)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Mistral Small 3
Chess Puzzles	14%	0%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1447	1233
Epoch Capabilities Index	146.95	127.07
SimpleBench	45.8%	—
NYT Connections (extended)	65.1%	—
CritPt	3.7%	—
Mystery Game Puzzles	8%	—
DTBench	78.9%	—
LMCA	33.7%	—
Surface Evolver Bench	55%	—
ForecastBench	61.4	—

Math MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 40.0 (#95), Mistral Small 3: 16.3 (#295)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Mistral Small 3
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	71.1%	6.7%
LMArena Math	1429	1240
ProofBench	18%	—

Knowledge MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 58.4 (#35), Mistral Small 3: 25.1 (#263)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Mistral Small 3
GPQA Diamond	90.9%	47.3%
LMArena Expert	1461	1202
Confabulations	—	25.2%

Multimodal Not comparable

MiniMax-M3: 40.2 (#51), Mistral Small 3: —

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Mistral Small 3
LMArena Vision	1253	—
LMArena Document	1435	—

Multilingual MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 53.0 (#75), Mistral Small 3: 37.3 (#236)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Mistral Small 3
LMArena Non-English	1420	1198
LMArena Chinese	1463	1204
LMArena French	1447	1203
LMArena German	1426	1211
LMArena Japanese	1381	1111
LMArena Korean	1372	1188
LMArena Russian	1428	1216
LMArena Spanish	1432	—

Instruction Following MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 75.5 (#62), Mistral Small 3: 63.7 (#229)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Mistral Small 3
LMArena Instruction Following	1433	1214

Long Context MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 44.2 (#72), Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#211)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Mistral Small 3
LMArena Longer Query	1445	1246

Writing & Preference MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 62.1 (#83), Mistral Small 3: 32.2 (#280)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Mistral Small 3
LMArena Text	1433	1234
LMArena Creative Writing	1404	1195
LMArena Multi-Turn	1442	1217
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	—	707
EQ-Bench 4	1150	—

Frequently asked questions

Is MiniMax-M3 better than Mistral Small 3?

Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M3 or Mistral Small 3?

Mistral Small 3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M3 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

Is MiniMax-M3 or Mistral Small 3 better for coding?

MiniMax-M3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.8 versus 36.5 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax-M3 does, with 1M tokens against 33K.

How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M3 and Mistral Small 3 share?

20 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M3 has 41 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3 has 24.