# MiniMax M1 vs Qwen Plus

> MiniMax M1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.3 to 37.1 on the Noometry Index. Qwen Plus costs 1.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax M1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/minimax-m1-vs-qwen-plus
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 13

## Summary

- They share 13 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax M1 scores higher in 7 categories and Qwen Plus in 1 category; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where MiniMax M1 leads 37.5 to 23.3.
- Qwen Plus is cheaper at $0.40 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.55 / $2.20 for MiniMax M1.
- MiniMax M1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | MiniMax M1 | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | MiniMax | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 40.3 | 37.1 |
| Rank | 150 | 210 |
| Context | 1M | 1M |
| Input $/M | $0.55 | $0.40 |
| Output $/M | $2.20 | $1.20 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- MiniMax M1: 39.9 (#153)
- Qwen Plus: 38.9 (#167)

| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1359 | 1328 |

## Reasoning

- MiniMax M1: 26.9 (#126)
- Qwen Plus: 28.4 (#107)

| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1339 | 1317 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 63.3% |
| DTBench | — | 81.1% |
| LMCA | — | 24% |

## Math

- MiniMax M1: 37.5 (#151)
- Qwen Plus: 23.3 (#271)

| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1361 | 1326 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 17.8% |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 65.3% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 1.7% |

## Knowledge

- MiniMax M1: 36.4 (#170)
- Qwen Plus: 27.4 (#251)

| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1317 | 1328 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 48.1% |

## Multilingual

- MiniMax M1: 45.8 (#163)
- Qwen Plus: 45.1 (#175)

| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1319 | 1310 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1360 | 1347 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1217 | 1251 |
| LMArena Russian | 1329 | 1323 |
| LMArena French | 1370 | — |
| LMArena German | 1350 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1266 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1353 | — |

## Instruction Following

- MiniMax M1: 69.3 (#174)
- Qwen Plus: 68.8 (#181)

| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1312 | 1303 |

## Long Context

- MiniMax M1: 41.4 (#141)
- Qwen Plus: 40.3 (#158)

| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1326 | 1324 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 69.4% | — |

## Writing & Preference

- MiniMax M1: 53.1 (#161)
- Qwen Plus: 52.2 (#176)

| Benchmark | MiniMax M1 | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1343 | 1326 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1298 | 1293 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1335 | 1336 |

## FAQ

### Is MiniMax M1 better than Qwen Plus?

MiniMax M1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.3 to 37.1 on the Noometry Index. Qwen Plus costs 1.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax M1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, MiniMax M1 or Qwen Plus?

Qwen Plus is cheaper. It lists at $0.40 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; MiniMax M1 lists at $0.55 and $2.20.

### Is MiniMax M1 or Qwen Plus better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (39.9 vs 38.9); test both on your own repository before choosing.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 1M tokens.

### How many benchmarks do MiniMax M1 and Qwen Plus share?

13 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax M1 has 18 scored results on Noometry and Qwen Plus has 20.