# MiniMax-M2.5 vs Mistral Small 3

> MiniMax-M2.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.1 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 9.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M2.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/minimax-m2-5-vs-mistral-small-3
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 18

## Summary

- They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M2.5 scores higher in 6 categories and Mistral Small 3 in 2 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where MiniMax-M2.5 leads 54.1 to 32.4.
- Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M2.5.
- MiniMax-M2.5 accepts more context: 205K tokens versus 33K.

## Snapshot

| | MiniMax-M2.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | MiniMax | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 38.1 | 30.9 |
| Rank | 181 | 268 |
| Context | 205K | 33K |
| Input $/M | $0.30 | $0.05 |
| Output $/M | $1.20 | $0.08 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- MiniMax-M2.5: 47.9 (#53)
- Mistral Small 3: 36.0 (#203)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1380 | 1246 |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | 75.8% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1386 | — |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | 68.3% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 45.3% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 50.4% |
| ALE-Bench | 618.17 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- MiniMax-M2.5: 30.2 (#70)
- Mistral Small 3: —

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 42.7% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | -23.16 | — |

## Reasoning

- MiniMax-M2.5: 17.6 (#281)
- Mistral Small 3: 18.2 (#269)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1372 | 1233 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 146.68 | 127.06 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 4.9% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 55.2% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 16.8% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 63.7% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 0% |

## Math

- MiniMax-M2.5: 25.8 (#242)
- Mistral Small 3: 15.3 (#290)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1378 | 1240 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 6.7% |
| ProofBench | 4% | — |

## Knowledge

- MiniMax-M2.5: 38.6 (#132)
- Mistral Small 3: 25.0 (#258)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1378 | 1202 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 47.3% |
| Confabulations | — | 25.2% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 9.1% | — |

## Multilingual

- MiniMax-M2.5: 47.3 (#147)
- Mistral Small 3: 37.5 (#231)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1338 | 1198 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1392 | 1204 |
| LMArena French | 1363 | 1202 |
| LMArena German | 1361 | 1211 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1169 | 1111 |
| LMArena Korean | 1232 | 1188 |
| LMArena Russian | 1359 | 1216 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1354 | — |

## Instruction Following

- MiniMax-M2.5: 71.7 (#143)
- Mistral Small 3: 63.9 (#224)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1353 | 1214 |

## Long Context

- MiniMax-M2.5: 37.4 (#211)
- Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#206)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1367 | 1246 |
| CL-bench | 11.4% | — |
| CL-bench Life | 6.3% | — |

## Writing & Preference

- MiniMax-M2.5: 54.1 (#149)
- Mistral Small 3: 32.4 (#275)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1359 | 1234 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1331 | 1195 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1361 | 707 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1364 | 1217 |

## FAQ

### Is MiniMax-M2.5 better than Mistral Small 3?

MiniMax-M2.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.1 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 9.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M2.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2.5 or Mistral Small 3?

Mistral Small 3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M2.5 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

### Is MiniMax-M2.5 or Mistral Small 3 better for coding?

MiniMax-M2.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 47.9 versus 36.0 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax-M2.5 does, with 205K tokens against 33K.

### How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M2.5 and Mistral Small 3 share?

18 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2.5 has 33 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3 has 24.