# MiniMax-M2.1 vs Qwen3.5 Plus

> Qwen3.5 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.9 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.1 costs 1.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 Plus's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/minimax-m2-1-vs-qwen3-5-plus
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 2

## Summary

- They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M2.1 scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3.5 Plus in 3 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Qwen3.5 Plus leads 32.8 to 16.6.
- MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.40 / $2.40 for Qwen3.5 Plus.
- Qwen3.5 Plus accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 205K.
- MiniMax-M2.1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | MiniMax | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 38.9 | 42.9 |
| Rank | 178 | 106 |
| Context | 205K | 1M |
| Input $/M | $0.30 | $0.40 |
| Output $/M | $1.20 | $2.40 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- MiniMax-M2.1: 40.4 (#143)
- Qwen3.5 Plus: —

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| ALE-Bench | 623.83 | 621.92 |
| LMArena WebDev | 1384 | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1421 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- MiniMax-M2.1: 27.9 (#98)
- Qwen3.5 Plus: —

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 36.6% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 0.54 |

## Reasoning

- MiniMax-M2.1: 16.6 (#302)
- Qwen3.5 Plus: 32.8 (#74)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| NYT Connections (extended) | 11.2% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 22% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1411 | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 17% |
| DTBench | — | 80.5% |
| LMCA | — | 36.4% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 146.78 |

## Math

- MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#138)
- Qwen3.5 Plus: 49.6 (#61)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 86.7% |
| LMArena Math | 1397 | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 21% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 2.1% |

## Knowledge

- MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#147)
- Qwen3.5 Plus: 46.0 (#83)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 11.8% | 10.7% |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 84.8% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 25.4% |
| LMArena Expert | 1431 | — |

## Multilingual

- MiniMax-M2.1: 50.0 (#128)
- Qwen3.5 Plus: —

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1378 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1430 | — |
| LMArena French | 1404 | — |
| LMArena German | 1381 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1287 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1298 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1387 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1397 | — |

## Instruction Following

- MiniMax-M2.1: 73.8 (#112)
- Qwen3.5 Plus: —

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1400 | — |

## Long Context

- MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#101)
- Qwen3.5 Plus: 43.0 (#113)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| CL-bench | — | 19.8% |
| CL-bench Life | — | 12.4% |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1416 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- MiniMax-M2.1: 58.3 (#120)
- Qwen3.5 Plus: —

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.1 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1392 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1361 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1396 | — |

## FAQ

### Is MiniMax-M2.1 better than Qwen3.5 Plus?

Qwen3.5 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.9 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.1 costs 1.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 Plus's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2.1 or Qwen3.5 Plus?

MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 Plus lists at $0.40 and $2.40.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.5 Plus does, with 1M tokens against 205K.

### How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M2.1 and Qwen3.5 Plus share?

2 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2.1 has 22 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 Plus has 15.