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Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs MiniMax M2.5

Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads MiniMax M2.5 on coding, 39.5 to 37.2 on the Vibe Coding Index, and MiniMax M2.5 costs 12.5x less per output token ($1.20 vs $15.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 59 benchmarks have a result for both.

Replace Claude Sonnet 4.5 Replace MiniMax M2.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5Anthropic
Coding
39.5
Overall
49.5
Output $/M
$15.00
43
MiniMax M2.5MiniMax
Coding
37.2
Overall
37.3
Output $/M
$1.20
14
vs boards won of 59 shared, 2 tied

Claude Sonnet 4.5 or MiniMax M2.5: which to pick

Pick Claude Sonnet 4.5 for coding: it scores 39.5 on the Vibe Coding Index against 37.2 for MiniMax M2.5.

Pick MiniMax M2.5 for output tokens 12.5x cheaper ($1.20 vs $15.00 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.62 against $1.16).

Model AClaude Sonnet 4.5Anthropic39.5/1003 independent benchmarks$1.16 per solved taskModel BMiniMax M2.5MiniMax37.2/1003 independent benchmarks$0.62 per solved task
Shared results
59
Claude Sonnet 4.5 only
36
MiniMax M2.5 only
9
Like-for-like categories
8 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.

At a glance

Coding index
Claude Sonnet 4.5 39.5 from 3 benchmarks, MiniMax M2.5 37.2 from 3 benchmarks.
Widest category
Agentic work, 24.0 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
Widest single gap
LMArena Text: Japanese: Claude Sonnet 4.5 1390 against MiniMax M2.5 1171, 36.4 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
Output price
Claude Sonnet 4.5 $15.00 against MiniMax M2.5 $1.20 per million output tokens, 12.5x apart.
Context window
Claude Sonnet 4.5 takes 1M tokens, MiniMax M2.5 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.

Boards won, where both have a result
CategoryClaude Sonnet 4.5BarsMiniMax M2.5Ties
Coding65
Intelligence11
Agentic work10
Reasoning511 tie
Math31
Knowledge100
Web design061 tie
General170
All shared boards43142 ties
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index65
Coding benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.5 and MiniMax M2.5
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5MiniMax M2.5Leader
SWE-bench Verified74.8%75.8%MiniMax M2.5
SWE-bench Multilingual67.0%68.3%MiniMax M2.5
LMArena WebDev13941386Claude Sonnet 4.5
AA Coding Index52.1Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
LiveCodeBench (Vals AI)73.0%79.2%MiniMax M2.5
SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI)70.0%74.2%MiniMax M2.5
Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI)22.6%14.8%Claude Sonnet 4.5
Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run)Not measured34.8%Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
Terminal-Bench46.5%42.7%Claude Sonnet 4.5
GSO-Bench14.7%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
WeirdML47.7%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
Cybench60.0%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
ALE-BenchNot measured618.2Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
LMArena Text: coding14881380Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: software and IT14731383Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena WebDev: React13861374Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena WebDev: HTML13991414MiniMax M2.5
Neither model has a result on the other 22 boards here
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index11
Intelligence benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.5 and MiniMax M2.5
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5MiniMax M2.5Leader
AA Intelligence Index20.722.8MiniMax M2.5
Epoch Capabilities Index146.7146.6Claude Sonnet 4.5
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
Agentic work benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.5 and MiniMax M2.5
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5MiniMax M2.5Leader
AA Agentic Index15.8Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
Design Arena: agents building web apps1060Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps1050Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
Design Arena: agents building mobile apps1137Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
τ²-Bench TelecomNot measured95.3%Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
METR time horizons67.4%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
Remote Labor Index2.1%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
GDPval42.5%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
DeepResearch Bench52.6%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
OSWorld62.9%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
Vending-Bench 2$3,839-$23Claude Sonnet 4.5
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL)73.2%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 29 boards here
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index51
Reasoning benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.5 and MiniMax M2.5
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5MiniMax M2.5Leader
GPQA Diamond81.6%82.1%MiniMax M2.5
MMMU Pro (Vals AI)79.3%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run)Not measured84.8%Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run)Not measured20.5%Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run)82.3%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
ARC-AGI63.7%63.7%Tie
ARC-AGI-213.6%4.9%Claude Sonnet 4.5
SimpleBench54.3%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
Chess puzzles10.0%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
Mystery game puzzles17.0%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
EBR-bench2.4%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
VPCT39.8%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
LMArena Text: hard prompts14621372Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: expert14831378Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: hard prompts in English14711384Claude Sonnet 4.5
Kagi LLM Benchmark57.9%55.2%Claude Sonnet 4.5
Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index31
Math benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.5 and MiniMax M2.5
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5MiniMax M2.5Leader
AIME88.2%88.8%MiniMax M2.5
MGSM (Vals AI)94.3%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
OTIS Mock AIME77.8%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 323.9%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
FrontierMath, tier 42.4%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
ProofBench19.0%4.0%Claude Sonnet 4.5
MATH level 597.7%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
LMArena Text: math14491378Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: mathematical work14621378Claude Sonnet 4.5
Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index100
Knowledge benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.5 and MiniMax M2.5
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5MiniMax M2.5Leader
MMLU Pro87.4%80.1%Claude Sonnet 4.5
LegalBench (Vals AI)84.1%80.0%Claude Sonnet 4.5
CaseLaw (Vals AI)62.2%53.5%Claude Sonnet 4.5
CorpFin (Vals AI)62.0%59.6%Claude Sonnet 4.5
TaxEval (Vals AI)73.3%68.2%Claude Sonnet 4.5
MortgageTax (Vals AI)64.0%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
MedQA (Vals AI)94.7%92.5%Claude Sonnet 4.5
MedCode (Vals AI)44.1%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
SimpleQA Verified30.7%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
LMArena Text: science14481369Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare14441357Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: legal and government14511366Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: business and finance14401356Claude Sonnet 4.5
FACTS Benchmark Suite40.6%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index06
Web design benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.5 and MiniMax M2.5
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5MiniMax M2.5Leader
Design Arena: websites11891222MiniMax M2.5
Design Arena: UI components11701170Tie
Design Arena: game dev11661176MiniMax M2.5
Design Arena: data viz11671172MiniMax M2.5
Design Arena: 3D11571170MiniMax M2.5
Design Arena: all code categories11821207MiniMax M2.5
Design Arena: SVG11141150MiniMax M2.5
Design Arena: ASCII art1205Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index170
General benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.5 and MiniMax M2.5
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5MiniMax M2.5Leader
SAGE (Vals AI)36.1%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
MedScribe (Vals AI)84.5%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
IFBenchNot measured71.6%Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
Long context reasoning (AA-LCR)Not measured73.3%Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
DTBench83.2%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
LMCA38.8%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
CL-benchNot measured11.4%Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
CL-bench LifeNot measured6.3%Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
LMArena Text14381359Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: instruction following14591353Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: creative writing14421331Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: English14501380Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: non-English14251338Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: Chinese14601393Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: German14271361Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: Japanese13901171Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: Korean14021233Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: French14591363Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: Spanish14581353Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: Russian14371359Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: Polish14231334Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: multi-turn14651364Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: longer queries14751366Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: writing and language14421345Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: entertainment and media14281329Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Document1450Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 20 boards here
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
Image generation benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.5 and MiniMax M2.5
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5MiniMax M2.5Leader
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 Sonnet 4.5$0.011Fits in one request
MiniMax M2.5$0.0009Fits in one request

MiniMax M2.5 costs less

Repository review

50K input + 3K output tokens

Claude Sonnet 4.5$0.195Fits in one request
MiniMax M2.5$0.019Fits in one request

MiniMax M2.5 costs less

Agent loop

200K input + 10K output tokens

Claude Sonnet 4.5$0.750Fits in one request
MiniMax M2.5$0.072Exceeds the context window

MiniMax M2.5 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.

Specifications of Claude Sonnet 4.5 and MiniMax M2.5
SpecificationAnthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5MiniMax M2.5
MakerAnthropicMiniMax
WeightsNo public weights listedOpen weights
ReleasedSeptember 29, 2025February 12, 2026
Context window1M205K
Input $/Mtok$3.00$0.30
Output $/Mtok$15.00$1.20
Coding index39.537.2
Independent measurements behind it33
Cost per solved task$1.16$0.62
SourceOpenRouter listingOpenRouter listing

Questions

Is Claude Sonnet 4.5 better than MiniMax M2.5 for coding?

Pick Claude Sonnet 4.5 for coding: it scores 39.5 on the Vibe Coding Index against 37.2 for MiniMax M2.5. Pick MiniMax M2.5 for output tokens 12.5x cheaper ($1.20 vs $15.00 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.62 against $1.16).

Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or MiniMax M2.5?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 costs $3.00 per million input tokens and $15.00 per million output tokens; MiniMax M2.5 costs $0.30 and $1.20. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Claude Sonnet 4.5 costs $1.16 and MiniMax M2.5 $0.62.

Which has the bigger context window, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or MiniMax M2.5?

Claude Sonnet 4.5, with 1M tokens against 205K.

How many benchmarks is the Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs MiniMax M2.5 comparison based on?

59 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Claude Sonnet 4.5's coding index rests on 3 independent benchmarks and MiniMax M2.5's on 3. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.

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