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Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs MiniMax M3

Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads MiniMax M3 on coding, 39.5 to 39.2 on the Vibe Coding Index, and MiniMax M3 costs 12.5x less per output token ($1.20 vs $15.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 69 benchmarks have a result for both.

Replace Claude Sonnet 4.5 Replace MiniMax M3
Claude Sonnet 4.5Anthropic
Coding
39.5
Overall
49.5
Output $/M
$15.00
35
MiniMax M3MiniMax
Coding
39.2
Overall
51.7
Output $/M
$1.20
34
vs boards won of 69 shared

Claude Sonnet 4.5 or MiniMax M3: which to pick

Claude Sonnet 4.5 and MiniMax M3 are level for coding, 39.5 against 39.2 on the Vibe Coding Index, so price and context decide.

Pick MiniMax M3 for output tokens 12.5x cheaper ($1.20 vs $15.00 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.56 against $1.16). Pick Claude Sonnet 4.5 for work measured by LMArena Text: coding or LMArena Text: software and IT, where it leads.

Model AClaude Sonnet 4.5Anthropic39.5/1003 independent benchmarks$1.16 per solved taskModel BMiniMax M3MiniMax39.2/1006 independent benchmarks$0.56 per solved task
Shared results
69
Claude Sonnet 4.5 only
26
MiniMax M3 only
47
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 M3 39.2 from 6 benchmarks.
Widest category
Agentic work, 12.8 points apart on average over 5 shared benchmarks.
Widest single gap
Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI): Claude Sonnet 4.5 22.6% against MiniMax M3 47.6%, 24.9 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
Output price
Claude Sonnet 4.5 $15.00 against MiniMax M3 $1.20 per million output tokens, 12.5x apart.
Context window
Claude Sonnet 4.5 takes 1M tokens, MiniMax M3 1.05M.

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 M3Ties
Coding27
Intelligence02
Agentic work14
Reasoning54
Math40
Knowledge55
Web design17
General175
All shared boards3534
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index27
Coding benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.5 and MiniMax M3
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5MiniMax M3Leader
SWE-bench Verified74.8%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
SWE-bench Multilingual67.0%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
LiveBench codingNot measured70.9%Only MiniMax M3 measured
LMArena WebDev13941482MiniMax M3
AA Coding Index52.158.6MiniMax M3
LiveCodeBench (Vals AI)73.0%82.2%MiniMax M3
SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI)70.0%75.0%MiniMax M3
Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI)Not measured1.0%Only MiniMax M3 measured
Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI)22.6%47.6%MiniMax M3
Code migration (Vals AI)Not measured19.9%Only MiniMax M3 measured
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI)Not measured53.6%Only MiniMax M3 measured
SWE-bench Multimodal (Vals AI)Not measured33.3%Only MiniMax M3 measured
Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI)Not measured9.2%Only MiniMax M3 measured
SkillsBench (Vals AI)Not measured51.5%Only MiniMax M3 measured
CyberBench (Vals AI)Not measured65.0%Only MiniMax M3 measured
SciCodeNot measured47.1%Only MiniMax M3 measured
Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run)Not measured42.4%Only MiniMax M3 measured
Terminal-Bench46.5%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
FrontierCodeNot measured14.7%Only MiniMax M3 measured
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 measured640.0Only MiniMax M3 measured
LMArena Text: coding14881470Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: software and IT14731466Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena WebDev: React13861478MiniMax M3
LMArena WebDev: HTML13991455MiniMax M3
LMArena WebDev: from an imageNot measured1470Only MiniMax M3 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 11 boards here
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
Intelligence benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.5 and MiniMax M3
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5MiniMax M3Leader
AA Intelligence Index20.729.2MiniMax M3
Epoch Capabilities Index146.7146.9MiniMax M3
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index14
Agentic work benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.5 and MiniMax M3
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5MiniMax M3Leader
AA Agentic Index15.829.5MiniMax M3
Design Arena: agents building web apps10601200MiniMax M3
Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps10501197MiniMax M3
Design Arena: agents building mobile apps11371169MiniMax M3
Design Arena: agents building Android appsNot measured1159Only MiniMax M3 measured
Design Arena: agents building gamesNot measured1158Only MiniMax M3 measured
Design Arena: HTML slidesNot measured1130Only MiniMax M3 measured
Design Arena: PowerPoint slidesNot measured1181Only MiniMax M3 measured
Design Arena: spreadsheetsNot measured1028Only MiniMax M3 measured
LiveBench researchNot measured68.0%Only MiniMax M3 measured
LiveBench browserNot measured8.0%Only MiniMax M3 measured
LiveBench long agenticNot measured12.4%Only MiniMax M3 measured
Finance Agent (Vals AI)Not measured48.3%Only MiniMax M3 measured
Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI)Not measured20.6%Only MiniMax M3 measured
Legal Research Bench (Vals AI)Not measured29.8%Only MiniMax M3 measured
Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI)Not measured47.8%Only MiniMax M3 measured
τ²-Bench TelecomNot measured88.9%Only MiniMax M3 measured
APEX-AgentsNot measured37.7%Only MiniMax M3 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
OSWorld 2.0Not measured4.6%Only MiniMax M3 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$2,158Claude 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 15 boards here
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index54
Reasoning benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.5 and MiniMax M3
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5MiniMax M3Leader
GPQA Diamond81.6%92.7%MiniMax M3
LiveBench reasoningNot measured74.5%Only MiniMax M3 measured
MMMU Pro (Vals AI)79.3%81.2%MiniMax M3
GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run)Not measured92.9%Only MiniMax M3 measured
Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run)Not measured39.0%Only MiniMax M3 measured
GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run)82.3%90.9%MiniMax M3
ARC-AGI63.7%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
ARC-AGI-213.6%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
SimpleBench54.3%45.8%Claude Sonnet 4.5
Chess puzzles10.0%13.0%MiniMax M3
Mystery game puzzles17.0%8.0%Claude Sonnet 4.5
EBR-bench2.4%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
VPCT39.8%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
LMArena Text: hard prompts14621447Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: expert14831461Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: hard prompts in English14711455Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Vision: diagramsNot measured1266Only MiniMax M3 measured
LMArena Vision: homeworkNot measured1268Only MiniMax M3 measured
Kagi LLM Benchmark57.9%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index40
Math benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.5 and MiniMax M3
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5MiniMax M3Leader
AIME88.2%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
MGSM (Vals AI)94.3%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
OTIS Mock AIME77.8%71.1%Claude Sonnet 4.5
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%18.0%Claude Sonnet 4.5
MATH level 597.7%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
LMArena Text: math14491429Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: mathematical work14621448Claude 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 index55
Knowledge benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.5 and MiniMax M3
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5MiniMax M3Leader
MMLU Pro87.4%84.2%Claude Sonnet 4.5
LegalBench (Vals AI)84.1%85.4%MiniMax M3
CaseLaw (Vals AI)62.2%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
CorpFin (Vals AI)62.0%68.1%MiniMax M3
TaxEval (Vals AI)73.3%72.7%Claude Sonnet 4.5
MortgageTax (Vals AI)64.0%68.4%MiniMax M3
MedQA (Vals AI)94.7%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
MedCode (Vals AI)44.1%46.3%MiniMax M3
SimpleQA Verified30.7%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured
LMArena Text: science14481452MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare14441441Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: legal and government14511437Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: business and finance14401434Claude 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 index17
Web design benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.5 and MiniMax M3
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5MiniMax M3Leader
Design Arena: websites11891257MiniMax M3
Design Arena: UI components11701242MiniMax M3
Design Arena: game dev11661210MiniMax M3
Design Arena: data viz11671236MiniMax M3
Design Arena: 3D11571208MiniMax M3
Design Arena: all code categories11821247MiniMax M3
Design Arena: SVG11151161MiniMax M3
Design Arena: ASCII art12051161Claude Sonnet 4.5
LiveBench designNot measured66.2%Only MiniMax M3 measured
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index175
General benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.5 and MiniMax M3
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5MiniMax M3Leader
LiveBench data analysisNot measured76.2%Only MiniMax M3 measured
Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI)Not measured64.1%Only MiniMax M3 measured
SAGE (Vals AI)36.1%50.6%MiniMax M3
MedScribe (Vals AI)84.5%87.3%MiniMax M3
Vals Multimodal IndexNot measured60.0%Only MiniMax M3 measured
IFBenchNot measured82.9%Only MiniMax M3 measured
Long context reasoning (AA-LCR)Not measured83.0%Only MiniMax M3 measured
DTBench83.2%78.9%Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMCA38.8%33.7%Claude Sonnet 4.5
Surface Evolver BenchNot measured55.0%Only MiniMax M3 measured
LMArena Text14381433Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: instruction following14591433Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: creative writing14421404Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena VisionNot measured1251Only MiniMax M3 measured
LMArena Text: English14501443Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: non-English14251420Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: Chinese14601466MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: German14271428MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: Japanese13901380Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: Korean14021373Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: French14591444Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: Spanish14581433Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: Russian14371426Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: Polish14231423MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: multi-turn14651443Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: longer queries14751446Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: writing and language14421419Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Text: entertainment and media14281403Claude Sonnet 4.5
LMArena Vision: EnglishNot measured1263Only MiniMax M3 measured
LMArena Vision: ChineseNot measured1311Only MiniMax M3 measured
LMArena Vision: reading textNot measured1259Only MiniMax M3 measured
LMArena Vision: humorNot measured1235Only MiniMax M3 measured
LMArena Vision: recognizing thingsNot measured1197Only MiniMax M3 measured
LMArena Vision: creative writingNot measured1234Only MiniMax M3 measured
LMArena Document14501435Claude Sonnet 4.5
Neither model has a result on the other 11 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 M3
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5MiniMax M3Leader
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 M3$0.0009Fits in one request

MiniMax M3 costs less

Repository review

50K input + 3K output tokens

Claude Sonnet 4.5$0.195Fits in one request
MiniMax M3$0.019Fits in one request

MiniMax M3 costs less

Agent loop

200K input + 10K output tokens

Claude Sonnet 4.5$0.750Fits in one request
MiniMax M3$0.072Fits in one request

MiniMax M3 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 M3
SpecificationAnthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5MiniMax M3
MakerAnthropicMiniMax
WeightsNo public weights listedOpen weights
ReleasedSeptember 29, 2025May 31, 2026
Context window1M1.05M
Input $/Mtok$3.00$0.30
Output $/Mtok$15.00$1.20
Coding index39.539.2
Independent measurements behind it36
Cost per solved task$1.16$0.56
SourceOpenRouter listingOpenRouter listing

Questions

Is Claude Sonnet 4.5 better than MiniMax M3 for coding?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 and MiniMax M3 are level for coding, 39.5 against 39.2 on the Vibe Coding Index, so price and context decide. Pick MiniMax M3 for output tokens 12.5x cheaper ($1.20 vs $15.00 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.56 against $1.16). Pick Claude Sonnet 4.5 for work measured by LMArena Text: coding or LMArena Text: software and IT, where it leads.

Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or MiniMax M3?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 costs $3.00 per million input tokens and $15.00 per million output tokens; MiniMax M3 costs $0.30 and $1.20. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Claude Sonnet 4.5 costs $1.16 and MiniMax M3 $0.56.

Which has the bigger context window, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or MiniMax M3?

MiniMax M3, with 1.05M tokens against 1M.

How many benchmarks is the Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs MiniMax M3 comparison based on?

69 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 M3's on 6. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.

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<p style="font:13px/1.4 sans-serif;margin:6px 0 0">Source: <a href="https://llmbenchmark.ai/compare/claude-sonnet-4-5-vs-minimax-minimax-m3">LLMBenchmark.ai, Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs MiniMax M3</a></p>