# MiniMax-M2.1 vs o1

> o1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.9 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.1 costs 50× less per token, which makes it the better buy when o1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/minimax-m2-1-vs-o1
- Last updated: 2026-10-11
- Shared benchmarks: 17

## Summary

- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M2.1 scores higher in 4 categories and o1 in 5 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where o1 leads 27.9 to 16.6.
- MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $15 / $60 for o1.
- MiniMax-M2.1 accepts more context: 205K tokens versus 200K.
- MiniMax-M2.1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | MiniMax-M2.1 | o1 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | MiniMax | OpenAI |
| Noometry Index | 38.9 | 40.9 |
| Rank | 178 | 143 |
| Context | 205K | 200K |
| Input $/M | $0.30 | $15 |
| Output $/M | $1.20 | $60 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- MiniMax-M2.1: 40.4 (#143)
- o1: 46.1 (#70)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | o1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1421 | 1367 |
| Aider Polyglot | — | 61.7% |
| LMArena WebDev | 1384 | — |
| WeirdML | — | 47.6% |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 69.7% |
| CadEval | — | 56% |
| ALE-Bench | 623.83 | — |
| HumanEval+ | — | 89% |
| MBPP+ | — | 80.2% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- MiniMax-M2.1: 27.9 (#98)
- o1: 24.6 (#117)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | o1 |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 36.6% | — |
| Cybench | — | 10% |
| METR Time Horizons | — | 51.1% |

## Reasoning

- MiniMax-M2.1: 16.6 (#302)
- o1: 27.9 (#111)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | o1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1411 | 1371 |
| SimpleBench | — | 41.7% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 11.2% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 30.7% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 15% |
| EnigmaEval | — | 5.7% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 91.6% |
| DTBench | — | 74.7% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 65.5% |
| LMCA | — | 22.3% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 141.91 |
| LiveBench | — | 75.7% |

## Math

- MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#138)
- o1: 36.1 (#175)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | o1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1397 | 1388 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 14.7% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 73.3% |
| LiveBench Math | — | 80.3% |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 94.7% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 9.3% |

## Knowledge

- MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#147)
- o1: 41.5 (#110)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | o1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1431 | 1361 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 76.8% |
| Humanity's Last Exam | — | 8% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 41.1% |
| Confabulations | — | 11.7% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 11.8% | — |

## Multimodal

- MiniMax-M2.1: —
- o1: 34.2 (#93)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | o1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1168 |
| GeoBench | — | 80% |
| VPCT | — | 37% |
| SpatialViz-Bench | — | 41.4% |

## Multilingual

- MiniMax-M2.1: 50.0 (#128)
- o1: 48.6 (#142)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | o1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1378 | 1358 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1430 | 1394 |
| LMArena French | 1404 | 1344 |
| LMArena German | 1381 | 1337 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1287 | 1346 |
| LMArena Korean | 1298 | 1396 |
| LMArena Russian | 1387 | 1356 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1397 | 1345 |

## Instruction Following

- MiniMax-M2.1: 73.8 (#112)
- o1: 74.8 (#86)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | o1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1400 | 1367 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 81.5% |

## Long Context

- MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#101)
- o1: 50.3 (#9)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | o1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1416 | 1378 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 83.3% |

## Writing & Preference

- MiniMax-M2.1: 58.3 (#120)
- o1: 55.6 (#144)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | o1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1392 | 1366 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1361 | 1348 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1396 | 1369 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | — | 70.2% |
| LiveBench Language | — | 65.4% |

## FAQ

### Is MiniMax-M2.1 better than o1?

o1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.9 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.1 costs 50× less per token, which makes it the better buy when o1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2.1 or o1?

MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; o1 lists at $15 and $60.

### Is MiniMax-M2.1 or o1 better for coding?

o1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 46.1 versus 40.4 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax-M2.1 does, with 205K tokens against 200K.

### How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M2.1 and o1 share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2.1 has 22 scored results on Noometry and o1 has 52.