# Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs MiniMax M1

> Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.5 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax M1 costs 4.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5-vs-minimax-m1
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 0

## Summary

- The widest gap is in math, where Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads 88.7 to 34.8.
- MiniMax M1 is cheaper at $0.40 / $2.20 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $10 for Claude Sonnet 5.5.
- MiniMax M1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | MiniMax M1 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | MiniMax |
| Noometry Index | 60.5 | 39.7 |
| Rank | 10 | 146 |
| Context | 1M | 1M |
| Input $/M | $2 | $0.40 |
| Output $/M | $10 | $2.20 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 65.5 (#6)
- MiniMax M1: 39.2 (#149)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | MiniMax M1 |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierCode | 52.1% | — |
| CursorBench | 55.5% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1699 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 61.9% | — |
| SciCode | 61% | — |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1359 |
| ALE-Bench | 1,819 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 44.9 (#14)
- MiniMax M1: —

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | MiniMax M1 |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 75.5% | — |

## Reasoning

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 52.4 (#29)
- MiniMax M1: 25.8 (#125)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | MiniMax M1 |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 31.4% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1340 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 65% | — |

## Math

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 88.7 (#4)
- MiniMax M1: 34.8 (#152)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | MiniMax M1 |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 88.8% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 80.5% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 100% | — |
| ProofBench | 100% | — |
| LMArena Math | — | 1360 |

## Knowledge

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#11)
- MiniMax M1: 35.7 (#168)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | MiniMax M1 |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 95.6% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 46.5% | — |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1316 |

## Multimodal

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 53.2 (#5)
- MiniMax M1: —

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | MiniMax M1 |
|---|---|---|
| Furniture Assembly | 75% | — |

## Multilingual

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: —
- MiniMax M1: 46.0 (#157)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | MiniMax M1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1320 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1361 |
| LMArena French | — | 1369 |
| LMArena German | — | 1350 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1220 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1263 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1330 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1354 |

## Instruction Following

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: —
- MiniMax M1: 69.5 (#169)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | MiniMax M1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1312 |

## Long Context

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: —
- MiniMax M1: 41.4 (#136)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | MiniMax M1 |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 69.4% |
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1326 |

## Writing & Preference

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: —
- MiniMax M1: 53.3 (#155)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | MiniMax M1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1343 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1298 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1335 |

## FAQ

### Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 better than MiniMax M1?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.5 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax M1 costs 4.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or MiniMax M1?

MiniMax M1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.40 per million input tokens and $2.20 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 5.5 lists at $2 and $10.

### Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 or MiniMax M1 better for coding?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 65.5 versus 39.2 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 1M tokens.

### How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5.5 and MiniMax M1 share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5.5 has 16 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax M1 has 18.