Claude Fable 5 vs MiniMax M2.1
Claude Fable 5 leads MiniMax M2.1 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 49.6 to 20.9, and MiniMax M2.1 costs 41.7x less per output token ($1.20 vs $50.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 24 benchmarks have a result for both.
vs boards won of 24 shared
Claude Fable 5 or MiniMax M2.1: which to pick
Only Claude Fable 5 has a coding score, 79.3 on the Vibe Coding Index; MiniMax M2.1 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick MiniMax M2.1 for output tokens 41.7x cheaper ($1.20 vs $50.00 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.59 against $2.16).
Model AClaude Fable 5Anthropic79.3/1006 independent benchmarks$2.16 per solved taskModel BMiniMax M2.1MiniMaxNot benchmarked1 independent benchmark$0.59 per solved task
- Shared results
- 24
- Claude Fable 5 only
- 111
- MiniMax M2.1 only
- 10
- Like-for-like categories
- 7 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
No call
Only Claude Fable 5 has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Claude Fable 5
Claude Fable 5 leads, 49.6 against 20.9.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Claude Fable 5 has a AA Agentic Index result, 50.7.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
Claude Fable 5
Claude Fable 5 leads, 93.2% against 78.5%.
Same board, both measured
Math
AIME
No call
Only MiniMax M2.1 has a AIME result, 77.9%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
Claude Fable 5
Claude Fable 5 leads, 91.5% against 87.0%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Claude Fable 5
Claude Fable 5 leads, 1295 against 1201.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Claude Fable 5
Claude Fable 5 takes 1M tokens against 205K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
MiniMax M2.1
Claude Fable 5 $0.035, MiniMax M2.1 $0.0009 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
MiniMax M2.1
Claude Fable 5 $2.16, MiniMax M2.1 $0.59.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- Claude Fable 5 79.3 from 6 benchmarks, MiniMax M2.1 not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Intelligence, 28.7 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- ALE-Bench: Claude Fable 5 2041.3 against MiniMax M2.1 623.8, 47.2 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Claude Fable 5 $50.00 against MiniMax M2.1 $1.20 per million output tokens, 41.7x apart.
- Context window
- Claude Fable 5 takes 1M tokens, MiniMax M2.1 205K.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Claude Fable 5 | Bars | MiniMax M2.1 | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 4 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 1 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 3 | 0 | ||
| Knowledge | 5 | 0 | ||
| Web design | 7 | 0 | ||
| General | 2 | 1 | ||
| All shared boards | 23 | 1 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index40
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5 | MiniMax M2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | 98.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1624 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| AA Coding Index | 76.5 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 89.8% | 81.8% | Claude Fable 5 |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 95.0% | 74.8% | Claude Fable 5 |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 41.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 90.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 55.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 2.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 80.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 81.0% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| SciCode | 61.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 62.9% | 28.8% | Claude Fable 5 |
| Terminal-Bench | Not measured | 36.6% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| FrontierCode | 53.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| FrontierSWE | 47.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| GSO-Bench | 78.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| WeirdML | 91.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| MirrorCode | 63.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 2041.3 | 623.8 | Claude Fable 5 |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1518 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1513 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1631 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1651 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | 1623 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| SWE Atlas: Codebase QnA | 39.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| SWE Atlas: Refactoring | 54.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| SWE Atlas: Test Writing | 55.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5 | MiniMax M2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 49.6 | 20.9 | Claude Fable 5 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 163.4 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5 | MiniMax M2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 50.7 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1261 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1280 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1263 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | 1283 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Godot games | 1292 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building games | 1285 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Design Arena: HTML slides | 1216 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Design Arena: PowerPoint slides | 1269 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LiveBench research | 86.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LiveBench browser | 92.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | 53.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 56.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 38.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 49.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 73.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | 15.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 98.5% | 85.4% | Claude Fable 5 |
| APEX-Agents | 63.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Remote Labor Index | 16.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| PostTrainBench | 41.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $5,680 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Search | 1229 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| MCP Atlas | 83.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 18 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index30
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5 | MiniMax M2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 93.2% | 78.5% | Claude Fable 5 |
| LiveBench reasoning | 89.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 89.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 92.6% | 83.0% | Claude Fable 5 |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 55.5% | 23.2% | Claude Fable 5 |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 85.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| ARC-AGI | 98.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 89.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| SimpleBench | 81.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Chess puzzles | 47.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 52.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| EBR-bench | 39.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1507 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1534 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1509 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1357 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1361 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 91.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index12 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5 | MiniMax M2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | Not measured | 77.9% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| MATH 500 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 89.0% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | Not measured | 87.8% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| AA Math Index | Not measured | 82.7 | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 82.7% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 100.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 87.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 90.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| ProofBench | 95.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1516 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1515 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| MathArena | 51.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 2 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index50
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5 | MiniMax M2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 91.5% | 87.0% | Claude Fable 5 |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 88.6% | 75.5% | Claude Fable 5 |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | Not measured | 55.8% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 71.8% | 58.9% | Claude Fable 5 |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 76.9% | 66.3% | Claude Fable 5 |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 68.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | Not measured | 91.2% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 56.1% | 34.1% | Claude Fable 5 |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 87.5% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 70.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1506 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1480 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1498 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1480 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| PRBench Finance | 53.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| PRBench Legal | 52.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index70
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5 | MiniMax M2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1295 | 1201 | Claude Fable 5 |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1316 | 1220 | Claude Fable 5 |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1335 | 1134 | Claude Fable 5 |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1305 | 1206 | Claude Fable 5 |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1318 | 1164 | Claude Fable 5 |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1310 | 1190 | Claude Fable 5 |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1301 | 1131 | Claude Fable 5 |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1329 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LiveBench design | 84.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index21
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5 | MiniMax M2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench data analysis | 80.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | 70.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 51.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 88.5% | 80.8% | Claude Fable 5 |
| Vals Multimodal Index | 74.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| IFBench | 63.5% | 69.9% | MiniMax M2.1 |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 82.3% | 67.7% | Claude Fable 5 |
| DTBench | 98.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMCA | 61.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Surface Evolver Bench | 95.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Furniture assembly | 35.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1491 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1502 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1494 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Vision | 1325 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1498 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1482 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1543 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1486 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1504 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1487 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1505 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1498 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1503 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1494 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1504 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1510 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1501 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1482 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1323 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1373 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1337 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1341 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1338 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| LMArena Document | 1496 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1340 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 12 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5 | MiniMax M2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Claude Fable 5$0.035Fits in one request
MiniMax M2.1$0.0009Fits in one request
MiniMax M2.1 costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Claude Fable 5$0.650Fits in one request
MiniMax M2.1$0.019Fits in one request
MiniMax M2.1 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Claude Fable 5$2.50Fits in one request
MiniMax M2.1$0.072Exceeds the context window
MiniMax M2.1 costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Anthropic Claude Fable 5 | MiniMax M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | MiniMax |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | June 9, 2026 | December 23, 2025 |
| Context window | 1M | 205K |
| Input $/Mtok | $10.00 | $0.30 |
| Output $/Mtok | $50.00 | $1.20 |
| Coding index | 79.3 | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 6 | 1 |
| Cost per solved task | $2.16 | $0.59 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Claude Fable 5 better than MiniMax M2.1 for coding?
Only Claude Fable 5 has a coding score, 79.3 on the Vibe Coding Index; MiniMax M2.1 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick MiniMax M2.1 for output tokens 41.7x cheaper ($1.20 vs $50.00 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.59 against $2.16).
Which is cheaper, Claude Fable 5 or MiniMax M2.1?
Claude Fable 5 costs $10.00 per million input tokens and $50.00 per million output tokens; MiniMax M2.1 costs $0.30 and $1.20. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Claude Fable 5 costs $2.16 and MiniMax M2.1 $0.59.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Fable 5 or MiniMax M2.1?
Claude Fable 5, with 1M tokens against 205K.
How many benchmarks is the Claude Fable 5 vs MiniMax M2.1 comparison based on?
24 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Claude Fable 5's coding index rests on 6 independent benchmarks and MiniMax M2.1's on 1. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.