# Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs MiniMax-M2.1

> Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.3 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.1 costs 11× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/claude-sonnet-4-6-vs-minimax-m2-1
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 22

## Summary

- They share 22 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores higher in 9 categories and MiniMax-M2.1 in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads 46.1 to 16.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is NYT Connections (extended): 80.9% for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and 11.2% for MiniMax-M2.1.
- MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $3 / $15 for Claude Sonnet 4.6.
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 205K.
- MiniMax-M2.1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | MiniMax |
| Noometry Index | 50.3 | 38.9 |
| Rank | 50 | 178 |
| Context | 1M | 205K |
| Input $/M | $3 | $0.30 |
| Output $/M | $15 | $1.20 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Claude Sonnet 4.6: 46.3 (#67)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 40.4 (#143)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1522 | 1384 |
| LMArena Coding | 1504 | 1421 |
| ALE-Bench | 1,327 | 623.83 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 75.2% | — |
| DeepSWE | 29.9% | — |
| FrontierCode | 24.3% | — |
| SciCode | 46.8% | — |
| WeirdML | 66.1% | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Claude Sonnet 4.6: 39.1 (#28)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 27.9 (#98)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 53.4% | 36.6% |
| APEX-Agents | 43% | — |
| OSWorld 2.0 | 9.3% | — |
| DeepResearch Bench | 54.9% | — |
| OSWorld | 72.1% | — |
| ExploitBench | 23.6% | — |
| GBAEval | 48.8% | — |
| GDP.pdf | 18% | — |
| LMArena Search | 1221 | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 7,204 | — |

## Reasoning

- Claude Sonnet 4.6: 46.1 (#45)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 16.6 (#302)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| NYT Connections (extended) | 80.9% | 11.2% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1484 | 1411 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 60.4% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 86.5% | — |
| CritPt | 3.1% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 13% | — |
| Thematic Generalization | 76.3% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 16% | — |
| DTBench | 89.9% | — |
| LMCA | 46.5% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 152.24 | — |
| ForecastBench | 62 | — |

## Math

- Claude Sonnet 4.6: 52.9 (#49)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#138)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1462 | 1397 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 85.8% | — |
| ProofBench | 45% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 32.4% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 8.3% | — |

## Knowledge

- Claude Sonnet 4.6: 51.7 (#65)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#147)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 10.6% | 11.8% |
| LMArena Expert | 1500 | 1431 |
| GPQA Diamond | 87.4% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 35.5% | — |

## Multimodal

- Claude Sonnet 4.6: 38.0 (#68)
- MiniMax-M2.1: —

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1283 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 6.7% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1482 | — |

## Multilingual

- Claude Sonnet 4.6: 54.4 (#41)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 50.0 (#128)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1440 | 1378 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1491 | 1430 |
| LMArena French | 1465 | 1404 |
| LMArena German | 1428 | 1381 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1420 | 1287 |
| LMArena Korean | 1411 | 1298 |
| LMArena Russian | 1440 | 1387 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1464 | 1397 |

## Instruction Following

- Claude Sonnet 4.6: 77.4 (#25)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 73.8 (#112)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1475 | 1400 |

## Long Context

- Claude Sonnet 4.6: 45.3 (#44)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#101)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1479 | 1416 |

## Writing & Preference

- Claude Sonnet 4.6: 70.2 (#22)
- MiniMax-M2.1: 58.3 (#120)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1458 | 1392 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1435 | 1361 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1464 | 1396 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1810 | — |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1207 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 better than MiniMax-M2.1?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.3 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.1 costs 11× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or MiniMax-M2.1?

MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 4.6 lists at $3 and $15.

### Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 or MiniMax-M2.1 better for coding?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 46.3 versus 40.4 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 does, with 1M tokens against 205K.

### How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 4.6 and MiniMax-M2.1 share?

22 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 4.6 has 57 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M2.1 has 22.