Model comparison

MiniMax-M3 vs Qwen3.5-Flash

MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.8 to 42.5 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5-Flash costs 3.0× 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. 27 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax-M3

MiniMax

43.8

Rank #85 Confirmed

Qwen3.5-Flash

Alibaba (Qwen)

42.5

Rank #112 Confirmed

Summary

They share 27 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M3 scores higher in 7 categories and Qwen3.5-Flash in 1 category; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in knowledge, where MiniMax-M3 leads 58.4 to 43.2.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 71.1% for MiniMax-M3 and 84.4% for Qwen3.5-Flash.
Qwen3.5-Flash is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.40 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M3.
MiniMax-M3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

MiniMax-M3 and Qwen3.5-Flash specifications
	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3.5-Flash
Provider	MiniMax	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	43.8	42.5
Released	2026-06-01	2026-02-23
Weights	Open	Proprietary
Context window	1M	1M
Max output	512K	66K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.30	$0.10
Output $ / M tokens	$1.20	$0.40
Results tracked	41	32

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Category by category

Coding MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 41.8 (#118), Qwen3.5-Flash: 34.2 (#242)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3.5-Flash
LMArena WebDev	1482	1244
LMArena Coding	1469	1412
ALE-Bench	640.02	221.8
FrontierCode	14.7%	—
SciCode	47.1%	—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

MiniMax-M3: 22.6 (#130), Qwen3.5-Flash: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3.5-Flash
Vending-Bench 2	2,158	462.69
APEX-Agents	37.7%	—
OSWorld 2.0	4.6%	—
GBAEval	0.9%	—

Reasoning Qwen3.5-Flash leads

MiniMax-M3: 30.1 (#87), Qwen3.5-Flash: 33.7 (#72)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3.5-Flash
Chess Puzzles	14%	21%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1447	1403
Mystery Game Puzzles	8%	20%
DTBench	78.9%	82.9%
LMCA	33.7%	29.1%
Epoch Capabilities Index	146.95	143.98
SimpleBench	45.8%	—
NYT Connections (extended)	65.1%	—
CritPt	3.7%	—
Surface Evolver Bench	55%	—
ForecastBench	61.4	—

Math MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 40.0 (#95), Qwen3.5-Flash: 37.4 (#158)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3.5-Flash
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	71.1%	84.4%
LMArena Math	1429	1407
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)	—	18.2%
ProofBench	18%	—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)	—	6.2%
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)	—	0%

Knowledge MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 58.4 (#35), Qwen3.5-Flash: 43.2 (#93)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3.5-Flash
GPQA Diamond	90.9%	82.3%
LMArena Expert	1461	1407
SimpleQA Verified	—	20.3%
Vectara Hallucination Rate	—	10.5%

Multimodal Not comparable

MiniMax-M3: 40.2 (#51), Qwen3.5-Flash: —

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3.5-Flash
LMArena Vision	1253	—
LMArena Document	1435	—

Multilingual MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 53.0 (#75), Qwen3.5-Flash: 50.5 (#121)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3.5-Flash
LMArena Non-English	1420	1385
LMArena Chinese	1463	1446
LMArena French	1447	1412
LMArena German	1426	1390
LMArena Japanese	1381	1368
LMArena Korean	1372	1344
LMArena Russian	1428	1379
LMArena Spanish	1432	1400

Instruction Following MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 75.5 (#62), Qwen3.5-Flash: 72.6 (#139)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3.5-Flash
LMArena Instruction Following	1433	1374

Long Context MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 44.2 (#72), Qwen3.5-Flash: 42.4 (#124)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3.5-Flash
LMArena Longer Query	1445	1392

Writing & Preference MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 62.1 (#83), Qwen3.5-Flash: 57.9 (#122)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3.5-Flash
LMArena Text	1433	1397
LMArena Creative Writing	1404	1343
LMArena Multi-Turn	1442	1393
EQ-Bench 4	1150	—

Frequently asked questions

Is MiniMax-M3 better than Qwen3.5-Flash?

Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M3 or Qwen3.5-Flash?

Qwen3.5-Flash is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.40 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M3 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

Is MiniMax-M3 or Qwen3.5-Flash better for coding?

MiniMax-M3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.8 versus 34.2 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 1M tokens.

How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M3 and Qwen3.5-Flash share?

27 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M3 has 41 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-Flash has 32.