Model comparison

MiniMax-M3 vs Qwen3.6 Plus

Qwen3.6 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.5 to 43.8 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M3 costs 2.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Plus's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 30 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax-M3

MiniMax

43.8

Rank #85 Confirmed

Qwen3.6 Plus

Alibaba (Qwen)

47.5

Rank #62 Confirmed

Summary

They share 30 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M3 scores higher in 4 categories and Qwen3.6 Plus in 4 categories; 2 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3.6 Plus leads 51.8 to 40.0.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 71.1% for MiniMax-M3 and 93.3% for Qwen3.6 Plus.
MiniMax-M3 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $3 for Qwen3.6 Plus.
MiniMax-M3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

MiniMax-M3 and Qwen3.6 Plus specifications
	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3.6 Plus
Provider	MiniMax	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	43.8	47.5
Released	2026-06-01	2026-03-31
Weights	Open	Proprietary
Context window	1M	1M
Max output	512K	66K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.30	$0.50
Output $ / M tokens	$1.20	$3
Results tracked	41	37

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Category by category

Coding Too close to call

MiniMax-M3: 41.8 (#118), Qwen3.6 Plus: 40.8 (#130)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3.6 Plus
LMArena WebDev	1482	1461
SciCode	47.1%	40.7%
LMArena Coding	1469	1467
ALE-Bench	640.02	670.15
SWE-bench Verified	—	57.9%
FrontierCode	14.7%	—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

MiniMax-M3: 22.6 (#130), Qwen3.6 Plus: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3.6 Plus
Vending-Bench 2	2,158	5,115
APEX-Agents	37.7%	—
OSWorld 2.0	4.6%	—
GBAEval	0.9%	—

Reasoning Too close to call

MiniMax-M3: 30.1 (#87), Qwen3.6 Plus: 29.3 (#93)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3.6 Plus
NYT Connections (extended)	65.1%	60.3%
CritPt	3.7%	2.9%
Chess Puzzles	14%	17%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1447	1449
Mystery Game Puzzles	8%	12%
DTBench	78.9%	81.9%
LMCA	33.7%	33.1%
Epoch Capabilities Index	146.95	147.65
SimpleBench	45.8%	—
Thematic Generalization	—	59.5%
Surface Evolver Bench	55%	—
ForecastBench	61.4	—

Math Qwen3.6 Plus leads

MiniMax-M3: 40.0 (#95), Qwen3.6 Plus: 51.8 (#54)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3.6 Plus
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	71.1%	93.3%
LMArena Math	1429	1450
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)	—	38.2%
ProofBench	18%	—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)	—	26.2%
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)	—	8.3%

Knowledge MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 58.4 (#35), Qwen3.6 Plus: 56.1 (#45)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3.6 Plus
GPQA Diamond	90.9%	88.4%
LMArena Expert	1461	1454
SimpleQA Verified	—	44.1%

Multimodal Not comparable

MiniMax-M3: 40.2 (#51), Qwen3.6 Plus: —

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3.6 Plus
LMArena Vision	1253	—
LMArena Document	1435	—

Multilingual Too close to call

MiniMax-M3: 53.0 (#75), Qwen3.6 Plus: 53.3 (#70)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3.6 Plus
LMArena Non-English	1420	1424
LMArena Chinese	1463	1477
LMArena French	1447	1455
LMArena German	1426	1452
LMArena Japanese	1381	1389
LMArena Korean	1372	1379
LMArena Russian	1428	1434
LMArena Spanish	1432	1432

Instruction Following Too close to call

MiniMax-M3: 75.5 (#62), Qwen3.6 Plus: 75.0 (#74)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3.6 Plus
LMArena Instruction Following	1433	1425

Long Context Too close to call

MiniMax-M3: 44.2 (#72), Qwen3.6 Plus: 45.2 (#49)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3.6 Plus
LMArena Longer Query	1445	1439
CL-bench	—	20.3%

Writing & Preference Too close to call

MiniMax-M3: 62.1 (#83), Qwen3.6 Plus: 62.2 (#82)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3.6 Plus
LMArena Text	1433	1437
LMArena Creative Writing	1404	1404
LMArena Multi-Turn	1442	1438
EQ-Bench 4	1150	—

Frequently asked questions

Is MiniMax-M3 better than Qwen3.6 Plus?

Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M3 or Qwen3.6 Plus?

MiniMax-M3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 Plus lists at $0.50 and $3.

Is MiniMax-M3 or Qwen3.6 Plus 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?

Both accept 1M tokens.

How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M3 and Qwen3.6 Plus share?

30 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M3 has 41 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Plus has 37.