# MiniMax-M3 vs Ministral 8B

> MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.8 to 28.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 3.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M3's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/minimax-m3-vs-ministral-8b
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 14

## Summary

- They share 14 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M3 scores higher in 9 categories and Ministral 8B in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where MiniMax-M3 leads 58.4 to 12.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 90.9% for MiniMax-M3 and 27.1% for Ministral 8B.
- Ministral 8B is cheaper at $0.15 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M3.
- MiniMax-M3 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.

## Snapshot

| | MiniMax-M3 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | MiniMax | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 43.8 | 28.2 |
| Rank | 85 | 325 |
| Context | 1M | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.30 | $0.15 |
| Output $/M | $1.20 | $0.15 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- MiniMax-M3: 41.8 (#118)
- Ministral 8B: 35.0 (#230)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1469 | 1202 |
| FrontierCode | 14.7% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1482 | — |
| SciCode | 47.1% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 640.02 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- MiniMax-M3: 22.6 (#130)
- Ministral 8B: 16.4 (#148)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 37.7% | — |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 11.1% |
| OSWorld 2.0 | 4.6% | — |
| GBAEval | 0.9% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 2,158 | — |

## Reasoning

- MiniMax-M3: 30.1 (#87)
- Ministral 8B: 18.4 (#281)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1447 | 1191 |
| DTBench | 78.9% | 45.7% |
| SimpleBench | 45.8% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 65.1% | — |
| CritPt | 3.7% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 14% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 8% | — |
| LMCA | 33.7% | — |
| Surface Evolver Bench | 55% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 146.95 | — |
| ForecastBench | 61.4 | — |

## Math

- MiniMax-M3: 40.0 (#95)
- Ministral 8B: 25.7 (#267)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1429 | 1188 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 71.1% | — |
| ProofBench | 18% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 14.9% |

## Knowledge

- MiniMax-M3: 58.4 (#35)
- Ministral 8B: 12.6 (#297)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 90.9% | 27.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1461 | 1170 |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 7.4% |

## Multimodal

- MiniMax-M3: 40.2 (#51)
- Ministral 8B: —

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1253 | — |
| LMArena Document | 1435 | — |

## Multilingual

- MiniMax-M3: 53.0 (#75)
- Ministral 8B: 35.1 (#247)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1420 | 1165 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1463 | 1193 |
| LMArena Russian | 1428 | 1195 |
| LMArena French | 1447 | — |
| LMArena German | 1426 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1381 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1372 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1432 | — |

## Instruction Following

- MiniMax-M3: 75.5 (#62)
- Ministral 8B: 60.5 (#250)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1433 | 1161 |

## Long Context

- MiniMax-M3: 44.2 (#72)
- Ministral 8B: 36.7 (#227)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1445 | 1212 |

## Writing & Preference

- MiniMax-M3: 62.1 (#83)
- Ministral 8B: 39.6 (#246)

| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1433 | 1191 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1404 | 1175 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1442 | 1166 |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1150 | — |

## FAQ

### Is MiniMax-M3 better than Ministral 8B?

MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.8 to 28.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 3.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M3's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M3 or Ministral 8B?

Ministral 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M3 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

### Is MiniMax-M3 or Ministral 8B better for coding?

MiniMax-M3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.8 versus 35.0 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax-M3 does, with 1M tokens against 262K.

### How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M3 and Ministral 8B share?

14 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M3 has 41 scored results on Noometry and Ministral 8B has 17.