GPT-5 Mini vs MiniMax M2.5

MiniMax M2.5 leads GPT-5 Mini on coding, 37.2 to 34.2 on the Vibe Coding Index, and MiniMax M2.5 costs 1.7x less per output token ($1.20 vs $2.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 62 benchmarks have a result for both.

Replace GPT-5 Mini Replace MiniMax M2.5

GPT-5 MiniOpenAI

Coding: 34.2
Overall: 43.7
Output $/M: $2.00

MiniMax M2.5MiniMax

Coding: 37.2
Overall: 37.3
Output $/M: $1.20

vs boards won of 62 shared

GPT-5 Mini or MiniMax M2.5: which to pick

Pick MiniMax M2.5 for coding: it scores 37.2 on the Vibe Coding Index against 34.2 for GPT-5 Mini.

Pick GPT-5 Mini for a lower cost per solved task ($0.08 against $0.62) and a larger context window (400K against 205K tokens).

Model AGPT-5 MiniOpenAI34.2/1002 independent benchmarks$0.08 per solved task Model BMiniMax M2.5MiniMax37.2/1003 independent benchmarks$0.62 per solved task

62396

Shared results: 62
GPT-5 Mini only: 39
MiniMax M2.5 only: 6
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.

Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
MiniMax M2.5
MiniMax M2.5 scores 37.2 against 34.2.
2 and 3 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
MiniMax M2.5
MiniMax M2.5 leads, 22.8 against 20.6.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
MiniMax M2.5
MiniMax M2.5 leads, 82.1% against 80.3%.
Same board, both measured
Math
AIME
GPT-5 Mini
GPT-5 Mini leads, 91.5% against 88.8%.
Same board, both measured
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
GPT-5 Mini
GPT-5 Mini leads, 82.2% against 80.1%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
MiniMax M2.5
MiniMax M2.5 leads, 1222 against 1125.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
GPT-5 Mini
GPT-5 Mini takes 400K tokens against 205K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
MiniMax M2.5
GPT-5 Mini $0.0013, MiniMax M2.5 $0.0009 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
GPT-5 Mini
GPT-5 Mini $0.08, MiniMax M2.5 $0.62.
Published attempt cost and pass rate

At a glance

Coding index: GPT-5 Mini 34.2 from 2 benchmarks, MiniMax M2.5 37.2 from 3 benchmarks.
Widest category: Agentic work, 12.1 points apart on average over 2 shared benchmarks.
Widest single gap: SWE-bench Multilingual: GPT-5 Mini 39.7% against MiniMax M2.5 68.3%, 28.6 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
Output price: GPT-5 Mini $2.00 against MiniMax M2.5 $1.20 per million output tokens, 1.7x apart.
Context window: GPT-5 Mini takes 400K 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
Category	GPT-5 Mini	MiniMax M2.5
Coding	3	6
Intelligence	0	2
Agentic work	0	2
Reasoning	4	5
Math	3	1
Knowledge	10	0
Web design	0	7
General	12	7
All shared boards	32	30

CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index36

Coding benchmarks for GPT-5 Mini and MiniMax M2.5
Benchmark	GPT-5 Mini	MiniMax M2.5	Leader
SWE-bench Verified	59.8%	75.8%	MiniMax M2.5
SWE-bench Multilingual	39.7%	68.3%	MiniMax M2.5
LMArena WebDev	Not measured	1386	Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
LiveCodeBench (Vals AI)	86.6%	79.2%	GPT-5 Mini
SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI)	60.8%	74.2%	MiniMax M2.5
Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI)	14.2%	14.8%	MiniMax M2.5
LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run)	83.8%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
SciCode	39.0%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run)	33.3%	34.8%	MiniMax M2.5
Terminal-Bench	34.8%	42.7%	MiniMax M2.5
WeirdML	52.7%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
ALE-Bench	Not measured	618.2	Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
LMArena Text: coding	1406	1380	GPT-5 Mini
LMArena Text: software and IT	1394	1383	GPT-5 Mini
LMArena WebDev: React	Not measured	1374	Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
LMArena WebDev: HTML	Not measured	1414	Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 23 boards here

IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02

Intelligence benchmarks for GPT-5 Mini and MiniMax M2.5
Benchmark	GPT-5 Mini	MiniMax M2.5	Leader
AA Intelligence Index	20.6	22.8	MiniMax M2.5
Epoch Capabilities Index	145.3	146.6	MiniMax M2.5

Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02

Agentic work benchmarks for GPT-5 Mini and MiniMax M2.5
Benchmark	GPT-5 Mini	MiniMax M2.5	Leader
τ²-Bench Telecom	71.1%	95.3%	MiniMax M2.5
Vending-Bench 2	-$31	-$23	MiniMax M2.5
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL)	55.5%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
Neither model has a result on the other 38 boards here

ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index45

Reasoning benchmarks for GPT-5 Mini and MiniMax M2.5
Benchmark	GPT-5 Mini	MiniMax M2.5	Leader
GPQA Diamond	80.3%	82.1%	MiniMax M2.5
MMMU Pro (Vals AI)	78.9%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run)	82.8%	84.8%	MiniMax M2.5
Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run)	21.5%	20.5%	GPT-5 Mini
GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run)	75.0%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
ARC-AGI	54.3%	63.7%	MiniMax M2.5
ARC-AGI-2	4.4%	4.9%	MiniMax M2.5
Chess puzzles	24.0%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
Mystery game puzzles	10.0%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
VPCT	40.2%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
LMArena Text: hard prompts	1380	1372	GPT-5 Mini
LMArena Text: expert	1379	1378	GPT-5 Mini
LMArena Text: hard prompts in English	1383	1384	MiniMax M2.5
LMArena Vision: diagrams	1202	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
LMArena Vision: homework	1210	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
Kagi LLM Benchmark	70.3%	55.2%	GPT-5 Mini
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 GPT-5 Mini and MiniMax M2.5
Benchmark	GPT-5 Mini	MiniMax M2.5	Leader
AIME	91.5%	88.8%	GPT-5 Mini
MATH 500 (Vals AI)	94.8%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
MGSM (Vals AI)	92.6%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
AA Math Index	90.7	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run)	90.7%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
OTIS Mock AIME	86.7%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3	46.7%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
FrontierMath, tier 4	12.2%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
ProofBench	9.0%	4.0%	GPT-5 Mini
MATH level 5	97.8%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
LMArena Text: math	1378	1378	MiniMax M2.5
LMArena Text: mathematical work	1380	1378	GPT-5 Mini
Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here

KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index100

Knowledge benchmarks for GPT-5 Mini and MiniMax M2.5
Benchmark	GPT-5 Mini	MiniMax M2.5	Leader
MMLU Pro	82.2%	80.1%	GPT-5 Mini
LegalBench (Vals AI)	81.8%	80.0%	GPT-5 Mini
CaseLaw (Vals AI)	68.5%	53.5%	GPT-5 Mini
CorpFin (Vals AI)	60.2%	59.6%	GPT-5 Mini
TaxEval (Vals AI)	75.2%	68.2%	GPT-5 Mini
MortgageTax (Vals AI)	66.9%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
MedQA (Vals AI)	96.1%	92.5%	GPT-5 Mini
MedCode (Vals AI)	43.0%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run)	83.7%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
SimpleQA Verified	21.6%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
LMArena Text: science	1371	1369	GPT-5 Mini
LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare	1380	1357	GPT-5 Mini
LMArena Text: legal and government	1375	1366	GPT-5 Mini
LMArena Text: business and finance	1358	1356	GPT-5 Mini
FACTS Benchmark Suite	38.6%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here

Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index07

Web design benchmarks for GPT-5 Mini and MiniMax M2.5
Benchmark	GPT-5 Mini	MiniMax M2.5	Leader
Design Arena: websites	1125	1222	MiniMax M2.5
Design Arena: UI components	1103	1173	MiniMax M2.5
Design Arena: game dev	1129	1176	MiniMax M2.5
Design Arena: data viz	1131	1172	MiniMax M2.5
Design Arena: 3D	1036	1170	MiniMax M2.5
Design Arena: all code categories	1114	1207	MiniMax M2.5
Design Arena: SVG	1091	1150	MiniMax M2.5
Design Arena: ASCII art	1125	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here

GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index127

General benchmarks for GPT-5 Mini and MiniMax M2.5
Benchmark	GPT-5 Mini	MiniMax M2.5	Leader
SAGE (Vals AI)	43.0%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
MedScribe (Vals AI)	80.6%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
IFBench	75.4%	71.6%	GPT-5 Mini
Long context reasoning (AA-LCR)	72.3%	73.3%	MiniMax M2.5
DTBench	80.5%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
LMCA	34.2%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
Fiction.LiveBench	69.4%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
Creative writing (Lech Mazur)	83.1%	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
CL-bench	Not measured	11.4%	Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
CL-bench Life	Not measured	6.3%	Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
LMArena Text	1373	1359	GPT-5 Mini
LMArena Text: instruction following	1357	1353	GPT-5 Mini
LMArena Text: creative writing	1325	1331	MiniMax M2.5
LMArena Vision	1202	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
LMArena Text: English	1379	1380	MiniMax M2.5
LMArena Text: non-English	1363	1338	GPT-5 Mini
LMArena Text: Chinese	1386	1393	MiniMax M2.5
LMArena Text: German	1366	1361	GPT-5 Mini
LMArena Text: Japanese	1341	1171	GPT-5 Mini
LMArena Text: Korean	1308	1233	GPT-5 Mini
LMArena Text: French	1386	1363	GPT-5 Mini
LMArena Text: Spanish	1354	1353	GPT-5 Mini
LMArena Text: Russian	1362	1359	GPT-5 Mini
LMArena Text: Polish	1378	1334	GPT-5 Mini
LMArena Text: multi-turn	1363	1364	MiniMax M2.5
LMArena Text: longer queries	1355	1366	MiniMax M2.5
LMArena Text: writing and language	1344	1345	MiniMax M2.5
LMArena Text: entertainment and media	1340	1329	GPT-5 Mini
LMArena Vision: English	1216	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
LMArena Vision: Chinese	1214	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
LMArena Vision: reading text	1199	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
LMArena Vision: humor	1205	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
LMArena Vision: captioning	1217	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
LMArena Vision: recognizing things	1226	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
LMArena Vision: creative writing	1181	Not measured	Only GPT-5 Mini measured
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 GPT-5 Mini and MiniMax M2.5
Benchmark	GPT-5 Mini	MiniMax M2.5	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

GPT-5 Mini$0.0013Fits in one request

MiniMax M2.5$0.0009Fits in one request

MiniMax M2.5 costs less

Repository review

50K input + 3K output tokens

GPT-5 Mini$0.018Fits in one request

MiniMax M2.5$0.019Fits in one request

GPT-5 Mini costs less

Agent loop

200K input + 10K output tokens

GPT-5 Mini$0.070Fits in one request

MiniMax M2.5$0.072Exceeds the context window

GPT-5 Mini 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 GPT-5 Mini and MiniMax M2.5
Specification	OpenAI GPT-5 Mini	MiniMax M2.5
Maker	OpenAI	MiniMax
Weights	No public weights listed	Open weights
Released	August 7, 2025	February 12, 2026
Context window	400K	205K
Input $/Mtok	$0.25	$0.30
Output $/Mtok	$2.00	$1.20
Coding index	34.2	37.2
Independent measurements behind it	2	3
Cost per solved task	$0.08	$0.62
Source	OpenRouter listing	OpenRouter listing

Questions

Is GPT-5 Mini better than MiniMax M2.5 for coding?

Pick MiniMax M2.5 for coding: it scores 37.2 on the Vibe Coding Index against 34.2 for GPT-5 Mini. Pick GPT-5 Mini for a lower cost per solved task ($0.08 against $0.62) and a larger context window (400K against 205K tokens).

Which is cheaper, GPT-5 Mini or MiniMax M2.5?

GPT-5 Mini costs $0.25 per million input tokens and $2.00 per million output tokens; MiniMax M2.5 costs $0.30 and $1.20. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, GPT-5 Mini costs $0.08 and MiniMax M2.5 $0.62.

Which has the bigger context window, GPT-5 Mini or MiniMax M2.5?

GPT-5 Mini, with 400K tokens against 205K.

How many benchmarks is the GPT-5 Mini vs MiniMax M2.5 comparison based on?

62 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. GPT-5 Mini's coding index rests on 2 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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GPT-5 Mini or MiniMax M2.5: which to pick

Which one for your work

Coding

Intelligence

Reasoning

Math

Knowledge

Web design

Long documents

Everyday cost

Cost per solved task