Model comparison
MiniMax-M3 vs Qwen3 Max
MiniMax-M3 and Qwen3 Max score almost the same on the Noometry Index (43.8 vs 43.7), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.
Last verified . 27 shared benchmarks.
MiniMax
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 27 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M3 scores higher in 5 categories and Qwen3 Max in 3 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where MiniMax-M3 leads 58.4 to 48.1.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is NYT Connections (extended): 65.1% for MiniMax-M3 and 30.1% for Qwen3 Max.
- MiniMax-M3 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $1.20 / $6 for Qwen3 Max.
- MiniMax-M3 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
- MiniMax-M3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| MiniMax-M3 | Qwen3 Max | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | MiniMax | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 43.8 | 43.7 |
| Released | 2026-06-01 | 2025-09-23 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Max output | 512K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.30 | $1.20 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $1.20 | $6 |
| Results tracked | 41 | 33 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3 Max leads
MiniMax-M3: 41.8 (#118), Qwen3 Max: 43.0 (#93)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1469 | 1456 |
| ALE-Bench | 640.02 | 370.45 |
| FrontierCode | 14.7% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1482 | — |
| SciCode | 47.1% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
MiniMax-M3: 22.6 (#130), Qwen3 Max: —
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | 2,158 | 71.56 |
| APEX-Agents | 37.7% | — |
| OSWorld 2.0 | 4.6% | — |
| GBAEval | 0.9% | — |
Reasoning MiniMax-M3 leads
MiniMax-M3: 30.1 (#87), Qwen3 Max: 22.6 (#190)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| NYT Connections (extended) | 65.1% | 30.1% |
| Chess Puzzles | 14% | 4% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1447 | 1448 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 8% | 5% |
| DTBench | 78.9% | 82.1% |
| LMCA | 33.7% | 28.3% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 146.95 | 142.38 |
| SimpleBench | 45.8% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 72.5% |
| CritPt | 3.7% | — |
| Surface Evolver Bench | 55% | — |
| ForecastBench | 61.4 | — |
Math MiniMax-M3 leads
MiniMax-M3: 40.0 (#95), Qwen3 Max: 38.7 (#131)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 71.1% | 73.3% |
| LMArena Math | 1429 | 1446 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 18.9% |
| ProofBench | 18% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 97.1% |
Knowledge MiniMax-M3 leads
MiniMax-M3: 58.4 (#35), Qwen3 Max: 48.1 (#78)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 90.9% | 72.6% |
| LMArena Expert | 1461 | 1455 |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 48.7% |
Multimodal Not comparable
MiniMax-M3: 40.2 (#51), Qwen3 Max: —
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1253 | — |
| LMArena Document | 1435 | — |
Multilingual Too close to call
MiniMax-M3: 53.0 (#75), Qwen3 Max: 53.7 (#62)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1420 | 1429 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1463 | 1478 |
| LMArena French | 1447 | 1449 |
| LMArena German | 1426 | 1463 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1381 | 1397 |
| LMArena Korean | 1372 | 1399 |
| LMArena Russian | 1428 | 1428 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1432 | 1462 |
Instruction Following Too close to call
MiniMax-M3: 75.5 (#62), Qwen3 Max: 74.8 (#87)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1433 | 1419 |
Long Context MiniMax-M3 leads
MiniMax-M3: 44.2 (#72), Qwen3 Max: 41.6 (#134)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1445 | 1438 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 66.7% |
| CL-bench | — | 14.5% |
Writing & Preference Too close to call
MiniMax-M3: 62.1 (#83), Qwen3 Max: 62.4 (#76)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1433 | 1439 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1404 | 1402 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1442 | 1446 |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1150 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is MiniMax-M3 better than Qwen3 Max?
MiniMax-M3 and Qwen3 Max score almost the same on the Noometry Index (43.8 vs 43.7), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.
Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M3 or Qwen3 Max?
MiniMax-M3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Max lists at $1.20 and $6.
Is MiniMax-M3 or Qwen3 Max better for coding?
Qwen3 Max scores higher on coding benchmarks: 43.0 versus 41.8 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
MiniMax-M3 does, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M3 and Qwen3 Max share?
27 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M3 has 41 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 Max has 33.