Model comparison
MiniMax-M3 vs o3-mini
MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.8 to 36.7 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 28 shared benchmarks.
MiniMaxSummary
- They share 28 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M3 scores higher in 8 categories and o3-mini in 1 category; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where MiniMax-M3 leads 58.4 to 38.3.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is SimpleBench: 45.8% for MiniMax-M3 and 22.8% for o3-mini.
- MiniMax-M3 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $1.10 / $4.40 for o3-mini.
- MiniMax-M3 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 200K.
- MiniMax-M3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| MiniMax-M3 | o3-mini | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | MiniMax | OpenAI |
| Noometry Index | 43.8 | 36.7 |
| Released | 2026-06-01 | 2024-12-20 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 1M | 200K |
| Max output | 512K | 100K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.30 | $1.10 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $1.20 | $4.40 |
| Results tracked | 41 | 51 |
Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry
Category by category
Coding Too close to call
MiniMax-M3: 41.8 (#118), o3-mini: 40.8 (#132)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 47.1% | 39.8% |
| LMArena Coding | 1469 | 1378 |
| FrontierCode | 14.7% | — |
| Aider Polyglot | — | 60.4% |
| LMArena WebDev | 1482 | — |
| GSO | — | 1.3% |
| WeirdML | — | 43.7% |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 82.7% |
| CadEval | — | 54% |
| ALE-Bench | 640.02 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use o3-mini leads
MiniMax-M3: 22.6 (#130), o3-mini: 29.6 (#84)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 37.7% | — |
| OSWorld 2.0 | 4.6% | — |
| Cybench | — | 22.5% |
| GBAEval | 0.9% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 2,158 | — |
Reasoning MiniMax-M3 leads
MiniMax-M3: 30.1 (#87), o3-mini: 16.3 (#305)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| SimpleBench | 45.8% | 22.8% |
| CritPt | 3.7% | 0.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | 14% | 17% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1447 | 1366 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 8% | 7% |
| DTBench | 78.9% | 68.8% |
| LMCA | 33.7% | 19% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 146.95 | 140.34 |
| ForecastBench | 61.4 | 59.6 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 3% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 65.1% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 34.5% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 89.6% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 70.6% |
| Surface Evolver Bench | 55% | — |
| LiveBench | — | 75.9% |
Math MiniMax-M3 leads
MiniMax-M3: 40.0 (#95), o3-mini: 28.1 (#244)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 71.1% | 76.9% |
| LMArena Math | 1429 | 1396 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 18.6% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | — | 0% |
| ProofBench | 18% | — |
| LiveBench Math | — | 77.3% |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 96.5% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 12.4% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 4.2% |
Knowledge MiniMax-M3 leads
MiniMax-M3: 58.4 (#35), o3-mini: 38.3 (#146)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 90.9% | 77% |
| LMArena Expert | 1461 | 1364 |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 15.3% |
| Confabulations | — | 17.9% |
Multimodal Not comparable
MiniMax-M3: 40.2 (#51), o3-mini: —
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1253 | — |
| LMArena Document | 1435 | — |
Multilingual MiniMax-M3 leads
MiniMax-M3: 53.0 (#75), o3-mini: 45.7 (#164)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1420 | 1319 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1463 | 1379 |
| LMArena French | 1447 | 1334 |
| LMArena German | 1426 | 1303 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1381 | 1286 |
| LMArena Korean | 1372 | 1314 |
| LMArena Russian | 1428 | 1304 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1432 | 1321 |
Instruction Following Too close to call
MiniMax-M3: 75.5 (#62), o3-mini: 75.1 (#72)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1433 | 1337 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 84.4% |
Long Context MiniMax-M3 leads
MiniMax-M3: 44.2 (#72), o3-mini: 33.8 (#256)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1445 | 1343 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 50% |
Writing & Preference MiniMax-M3 leads
MiniMax-M3: 62.1 (#83), o3-mini: 50.3 (#182)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1433 | 1337 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1404 | 1286 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1442 | 1320 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | — | 61.7% |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1150 | — |
| LiveBench Language | — | 50.7% |
Frequently asked questions
Is MiniMax-M3 better than o3-mini?
MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.8 to 36.7 on the Noometry Index.
Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M3 or o3-mini?
MiniMax-M3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; o3-mini lists at $1.10 and $4.40.
Is MiniMax-M3 or o3-mini better for coding?
They score almost the same on coding (41.8 vs 40.8); test both on your own repository before choosing.
Which has the bigger context window?
MiniMax-M3 does, with 1M tokens against 200K.
How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M3 and o3-mini share?
28 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M3 has 41 scored results on Noometry and o3-mini has 51.