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GPT-5 Mini vs MiniMax M3

MiniMax M3 leads GPT-5 Mini on coding, 39.2 to 34.2 on the Vibe Coding Index, and MiniMax M3 costs 1.7x less per output token ($1.20 vs $2.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 75 benchmarks have a result for both.

Replace GPT-5 Mini Replace MiniMax M3
GPT-5 MiniOpenAI
Coding
34.2
Overall
43.7
Output $/M
$2.00
8
MiniMax M3MiniMax
Coding
39.2
Overall
51.7
Output $/M
$1.20
67
vs boards won of 75 shared

GPT-5 Mini or MiniMax M3: which to pick

Pick MiniMax M3 for coding: it scores 39.2 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 $0.56) and work measured by LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) or Chess puzzles, where it leads.

Model AGPT-5 MiniOpenAI34.2/1002 independent benchmarks$0.08 per solved taskModel BMiniMax M3MiniMax39.2/1006 independent benchmarks$0.56 per solved task
Shared results
75
GPT-5 Mini only
28
MiniMax M3 only
42
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
GPT-5 Mini 34.2 from 2 benchmarks, MiniMax M3 39.2 from 6 benchmarks.
Widest category
Agentic work, 15.7 points apart on average over 2 shared benchmarks.
Widest single gap
Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI): GPT-5 Mini 14.2% against MiniMax M3 47.6%, 33.4 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
Output price
GPT-5 Mini $2.00 against MiniMax M3 $1.20 per million output tokens, 1.7x apart.
Context window
GPT-5 Mini takes 400K 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
CategoryGPT-5 MiniBarsMiniMax M3Ties
Coding16
Intelligence02
Agentic work02
Reasoning210
Math13
Knowledge19
Web design08
General327
All shared boards867
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index16
Coding benchmarks for GPT-5 Mini and MiniMax M3
BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniMiniMax M3Leader
SWE-bench Verified59.8%Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
SWE-bench Multilingual39.7%Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
LiveBench codingNot measured70.9%Only MiniMax M3 measured
LMArena WebDevNot measured1482Only MiniMax M3 measured
AA Coding IndexNot measured58.6Only MiniMax M3 measured
LiveCodeBench (Vals AI)86.6%82.2%GPT-5 Mini
SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI)60.8%75.0%MiniMax M3
Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI)Not measured1.0%Only MiniMax M3 measured
Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI)14.2%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
LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run)83.8%Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
SciCode39.0%47.1%MiniMax M3
Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run)33.3%42.4%MiniMax M3
Terminal-Bench34.8%Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
FrontierCodeNot measured14.7%Only MiniMax M3 measured
WeirdML52.7%Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
ALE-BenchNot measured640.0Only MiniMax M3 measured
LMArena Text: coding14061470MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: software and IT13941466MiniMax M3
LMArena WebDev: ReactNot measured1478Only MiniMax M3 measured
LMArena WebDev: HTMLNot measured1455Only MiniMax M3 measured
LMArena WebDev: from an imageNot measured1470Only MiniMax M3 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 16 boards here
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
Intelligence benchmarks for GPT-5 Mini and MiniMax M3
BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniMiniMax M3Leader
AA Intelligence Index20.629.2MiniMax M3
Epoch Capabilities Index145.3146.9MiniMax M3
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
Agentic work benchmarks for GPT-5 Mini and MiniMax M3
BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniMiniMax M3Leader
AA Agentic IndexNot measured29.5Only MiniMax M3 measured
Design Arena: agents building web appsNot measured1200Only MiniMax M3 measured
Design Arena: agents building full-stack appsNot measured1197Only MiniMax M3 measured
Design Arena: agents building mobile appsNot measured1169Only MiniMax M3 measured
Design Arena: agents building Android appsNot measured1158Only MiniMax M3 measured
Design Arena: agents building gamesNot measured1159Only MiniMax M3 measured
Design Arena: HTML slidesNot measured1120Only MiniMax M3 measured
Design Arena: PowerPoint slidesNot measured1178Only MiniMax M3 measured
Design Arena: spreadsheetsNot measured1042Only 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 Telecom71.1%88.9%MiniMax M3
APEX-AgentsNot measured37.7%Only MiniMax M3 measured
OSWorld 2.0Not measured4.6%Only MiniMax M3 measured
Vending-Bench 2-$31$2,158MiniMax M3
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL)55.5%Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
Neither model has a result on the other 21 boards here
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index210
Reasoning benchmarks for GPT-5 Mini and MiniMax M3
BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniMiniMax M3Leader
GPQA Diamond80.3%92.7%MiniMax M3
LiveBench reasoningNot measured74.5%Only MiniMax M3 measured
MMMU Pro (Vals AI)78.9%81.2%MiniMax M3
GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run)82.8%92.9%MiniMax M3
Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run)21.5%39.0%MiniMax M3
GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run)75.0%90.9%MiniMax M3
ARC-AGI54.3%Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
ARC-AGI-24.4%Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
SimpleBenchNot measured45.8%Only MiniMax M3 measured
Chess puzzles24.0%13.0%GPT-5 Mini
Mystery game puzzles10.0%8.0%GPT-5 Mini
VPCT40.2%Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
LMArena Text: hard prompts13801447MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: expert13791461MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: hard prompts in English13831455MiniMax M3
LMArena Vision: diagrams12021266MiniMax M3
LMArena Vision: homework12101268MiniMax M3
Kagi LLM Benchmark70.3%Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index13
Math benchmarks for GPT-5 Mini and MiniMax M3
BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniMiniMax M3Leader
AIME91.5%Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
MATH 500 (Vals AI)94.8%Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
MGSM (Vals AI)92.6%Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
AA Math Index90.7Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run)90.7%Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
OTIS Mock AIME86.7%71.1%GPT-5 Mini
FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 346.7%Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
FrontierMath, tier 412.2%Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
ProofBench9.0%18.0%MiniMax M3
MATH level 597.8%Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
LMArena Text: math13781429MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: mathematical work13801448MiniMax M3
MathArena14.8%Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index19
Knowledge benchmarks for GPT-5 Mini and MiniMax M3
BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniMiniMax M3Leader
MMLU Pro82.2%84.2%MiniMax M3
LegalBench (Vals AI)81.8%85.4%MiniMax M3
CaseLaw (Vals AI)68.5%Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
CorpFin (Vals AI)60.2%68.1%MiniMax M3
TaxEval (Vals AI)75.2%72.7%GPT-5 Mini
MortgageTax (Vals AI)66.9%68.4%MiniMax M3
MedQA (Vals AI)96.1%Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
MedCode (Vals AI)43.0%46.3%MiniMax M3
MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run)83.7%Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
SimpleQA Verified21.6%Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
LMArena Text: science13711452MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare13801441MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: legal and government13751437MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: business and finance13581434MiniMax M3
FACTS Benchmark Suite38.6%Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index08
Web design benchmarks for GPT-5 Mini and MiniMax M3
BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniMiniMax M3Leader
Design Arena: websites11251257MiniMax M3
Design Arena: UI components11031243MiniMax M3
Design Arena: game dev11291210MiniMax M3
Design Arena: data viz11311236MiniMax M3
Design Arena: 3D10361208MiniMax M3
Design Arena: all code categories11141246MiniMax M3
Design Arena: SVG10901160MiniMax M3
Design Arena: ASCII art11251161MiniMax M3
LiveBench designNot measured66.2%Only MiniMax M3 measured
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index327
General benchmarks for GPT-5 Mini and MiniMax M3
BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniMiniMax 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)43.0%50.6%MiniMax M3
MedScribe (Vals AI)80.6%87.3%MiniMax M3
Vals Multimodal IndexNot measured60.0%Only MiniMax M3 measured
IFBench75.4%82.9%MiniMax M3
Long context reasoning (AA-LCR)72.3%83.0%MiniMax M3
DTBench80.5%78.9%GPT-5 Mini
LMCA34.2%33.7%GPT-5 Mini
Fiction.LiveBench69.4%Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
Creative writing (Lech Mazur)83.1%Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
Surface Evolver BenchNot measured55.0%Only MiniMax M3 measured
LMArena Text13731433MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: instruction following13571433MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: creative writing13251404MiniMax M3
LMArena Vision12021251MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: English13791443MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: non-English13631420MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: Chinese13861466MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: German13661428MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: Japanese13411380MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: Korean13081373MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: French13861444MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: Spanish13541433MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: Russian13621426MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: Polish13781423MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: multi-turn13631443MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: longer queries13551446MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: writing and language13441419MiniMax M3
LMArena Text: entertainment and media13401403MiniMax M3
LMArena Vision: English12161263MiniMax M3
LMArena Vision: Chinese12141311MiniMax M3
LMArena Vision: reading text11991259MiniMax M3
LMArena Vision: humor12051235MiniMax M3
LMArena Vision: captioning1217Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
LMArena Vision: recognizing things12261197GPT-5 Mini
LMArena Vision: creative writing11811234MiniMax M3
LMArena DocumentNot measured1435Only MiniMax M3 measured
MultiChallenge59.0%Not measuredOnly GPT-5 Mini measured
EQ-Bench 4Not measured1150Only MiniMax M3 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 8 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 M3
BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniMiniMax 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

GPT-5 Mini$0.0013Fits in one request
MiniMax M3$0.0009Fits in one request

MiniMax M3 costs less

Repository review

50K input + 3K output tokens

GPT-5 Mini$0.018Fits in one request
MiniMax M3$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 M3$0.072Fits in one request

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 M3
SpecificationOpenAI GPT-5 MiniMiniMax M3
MakerOpenAIMiniMax
WeightsNo public weights listedOpen weights
ReleasedAugust 7, 2025May 31, 2026
Context window400K1.05M
Input $/Mtok$0.25$0.30
Output $/Mtok$2.00$1.20
Coding index34.239.2
Independent measurements behind it26
Cost per solved task$0.08$0.56
SourceOpenRouter listingOpenRouter listing

Questions

Is GPT-5 Mini better than MiniMax M3 for coding?

Pick MiniMax M3 for coding: it scores 39.2 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 $0.56) and work measured by LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) or Chess puzzles, where it leads.

Which is cheaper, GPT-5 Mini or MiniMax M3?

GPT-5 Mini costs $0.25 per million input tokens and $2.00 per million output tokens; MiniMax M3 costs $0.30 and $1.20. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, GPT-5 Mini costs $0.08 and MiniMax M3 $0.56.

Which has the bigger context window, GPT-5 Mini or MiniMax M3?

MiniMax M3, with 1.05M tokens against 400K.

How many benchmarks is the GPT-5 Mini vs MiniMax M3 comparison based on?

75 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 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/gpt-5-mini-vs-minimax-minimax-m3">LLMBenchmark.ai, GPT-5 Mini vs MiniMax M3</a></p>