Grok 4.6 vs MiniMax M3
Updated October 21, 2026. 106 benchmarks have a result for both. Coding is ranked on the Vibe Coding Index; every other board is shown as published.
Decision reading
Pick Grok 4.6 for coding: it scores 76.4 on the Vibe Coding Index against 57.8 for MiniMax M3.
Pick MiniMax M3 when output tokens cost 5.0x less, or when a solved task costs $0.56 against $0.82.
- Shared results
- 106
- Grok 4.6 only
- 17
- MiniMax M3 only
- 10
- Like-for-like categories
- 8 of 9
Shared results can support a head-to-head reading. Results only one model has describe coverage, not superiority.
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, four public coding benchmarks
Grok 4.6
Grok 4.6 scores 76.4 against 57.8.
2 benchmarks behind each score
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Grok 4.6
Grok 4.6 leads, 44.3 against 29.2.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
Grok 4.6
Grok 4.6 leads, 53.0 against 29.5.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
Grok 4.6
Grok 4.6 leads, 94.7% against 92.7%.
Same board, both measured
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
Grok 4.6
Grok 4.6 leads, 89.4% against 84.2%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Grok 4.6
Grok 4.6 leads, 1289 against 1257.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
MiniMax M3
MiniMax M3 takes 1.05M tokens against 500K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
MiniMax M3
Grok 4.6 $0.0050, MiniMax M3 $0.0009 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
MiniMax M3
Grok 4.6 $0.82, MiniMax M3 $0.56.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- Grok 4.6 76.4 from 2 benchmarks, MiniMax M3 57.8 from 2 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Agentic work, 17.9 points apart on average over 17 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- LiveBench browser: Grok 4.6 64.0% against MiniMax M3 8.0%, 56.0 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Grok 4.6 $6.00 against MiniMax M3 $1.20 per million output tokens, 5.0x apart.
- Context window
- Grok 4.6 takes 500K 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.
| Category | Grok 4.6 | Bars | MiniMax M3 | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 18 | 2 | ||
| Intelligence | 2 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 17 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 12 | 1 | ||
| Math | 3 | 1 | ||
| Knowledge | 2 | 8 | ||
| Web design | 9 | 0 | ||
| General | 17 | 14 | ||
| All shared boards | 80 | 26 |
CodingLike-for-likeFour of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index182
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | MiniMax M3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | 89.1% | 70.9% | Grok 4.6 |
| LMArena WebDev | 1617 | 1482 | Grok 4.6 |
| AA Coding Index | 76.8 | 58.6 | Grok 4.6 |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 88.2% | 82.2% | Grok 4.6 |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 95.6% | 75.0% | Grok 4.6 |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 17.2% | 1.0% | Grok 4.6 |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 76.2% | 47.6% | Grok 4.6 |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 44.6% | 19.9% | Grok 4.6 |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 1.0% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | 47.6% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 78.3% | 53.6% | Grok 4.6 |
| SWE-bench Multimodal (Vals AI) | Not measured | 33.3% | Only MiniMax M3 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI) | 14.8% | 9.2% | Grok 4.6 |
| SkillsBench (Vals AI) | 55.8% | 51.5% | Grok 4.6 |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | 67.7% | 65.0% | Grok 4.6 |
| SciCode | 56.5% | 47.1% | Grok 4.6 |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 42.4% | Only MiniMax M3 measured |
| FrontierCode | 48.0% | 14.7% | Grok 4.6 |
| FrontierSWE | 25.3% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| WeirdML | 67.3% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 1508.1 | 640.0 | Grok 4.6 |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1466 | 1470 | MiniMax M3 |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1457 | 1466 | MiniMax M3 |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1631 | 1478 | Grok 4.6 |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1597 | 1455 | Grok 4.6 |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | 1603 | 1470 | Grok 4.6 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 12 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | MiniMax M3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 44.3 | 29.2 | Grok 4.6 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 156.6 | 146.9 | Grok 4.6 |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index170
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | MiniMax M3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 53.0 | 29.5 | Grok 4.6 |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1247 | 1200 | Grok 4.6 |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1264 | 1197 | Grok 4.6 |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1234 | 1169 | Grok 4.6 |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | 1297 | 1164 | Grok 4.6 |
| Design Arena: agents building Godot games | 1276 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building games | 1208 | 1158 | Grok 4.6 |
| Design Arena: HTML slides | 1249 | 1180 | Grok 4.6 |
| Design Arena: PowerPoint slides | 1241 | 1205 | Grok 4.6 |
| Design Arena: spreadsheets | Not measured | 1021 | Only MiniMax M3 measured |
| LiveBench research | 84.5% | 68.0% | Grok 4.6 |
| LiveBench browser | 64.0% | 8.0% | Grok 4.6 |
| LiveBench long agentic | 40.7% | 12.4% | Grok 4.6 |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 53.7% | 48.3% | Grok 4.6 |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 33.1% | 20.6% | Grok 4.6 |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 48.1% | 29.8% | Grok 4.6 |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 62.7% | 47.8% | Grok 4.6 |
| BioMysteryBench (Vals AI) | 72.2% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | 11.4% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Vals Science Index | 38.1% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Time Horizon Index (Vals AI) | 5.8% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | Not measured | 88.9% | Only MiniMax M3 measured |
| APEX-Agents | 65.3% | 37.7% | Grok 4.6 |
| OSWorld 2.0 | Not measured | 4.6% | Only MiniMax M3 measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $9,047 | $2,158 | Grok 4.6 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 14 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index121
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | MiniMax M3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 94.7% | 92.7% | Grok 4.6 |
| LiveBench reasoning | 91.2% | 74.5% | Grok 4.6 |
| MysteryMechanism (Vals AI) | 30.6% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | Not measured | 81.2% | Only MiniMax M3 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 94.9% | 92.9% | Grok 4.6 |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 44.1% | 39.0% | Grok 4.6 |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 94.0% | 90.9% | Grok 4.6 |
| ARC-AGI | 87.5% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 67.1% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| SimpleBench | 75.9% | 45.8% | Grok 4.6 |
| Chess puzzles | 33.0% | 13.0% | Grok 4.6 |
| Mystery game puzzles | 34.0% | 8.0% | Grok 4.6 |
| EBR-bench | 30.5% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1448 | 1447 | Grok 4.6 |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1469 | 1461 | Grok 4.6 |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1445 | 1455 | MiniMax M3 |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1285 | 1266 | Grok 4.6 |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1283 | 1268 | Grok 4.6 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index31
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | MiniMax M3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME | 99.2% | 71.1% | Grok 4.6 |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 66.0% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 31.7% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| ProofBench | 51.0% | 18.0% | Grok 4.6 |
| LMArena Text: math | 1417 | 1429 | MiniMax M3 |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1464 | 1448 | Grok 4.6 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index28
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | MiniMax M3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 89.4% | 84.2% | Grok 4.6 |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 86.3% | 85.4% | Grok 4.6 |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 66.2% | 68.1% | MiniMax M3 |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 71.1% | 72.7% | MiniMax M3 |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 64.2% | 68.4% | MiniMax M3 |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 44.7% | 46.3% | MiniMax M3 |
| SimpleQA Verified | 49.3% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1437 | 1452 | MiniMax M3 |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1420 | 1441 | MiniMax M3 |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1429 | 1437 | MiniMax M3 |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1416 | 1434 | MiniMax M3 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index90
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | MiniMax M3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1289 | 1257 | Grok 4.6 |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1294 | 1246 | Grok 4.6 |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1296 | 1210 | Grok 4.6 |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1283 | 1235 | Grok 4.6 |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1277 | 1209 | Grok 4.6 |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1292 | 1247 | Grok 4.6 |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1239 | 1161 | Grok 4.6 |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1278 | 1161 | Grok 4.6 |
| LiveBench design | 79.8% | 66.2% | Grok 4.6 |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index1714
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | MiniMax M3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench data analysis | 75.3% | 76.2% | MiniMax M3 |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | 66.8% | 64.1% | Grok 4.6 |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 28.9% | 50.6% | MiniMax M3 |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 86.5% | 87.3% | MiniMax M3 |
| Vals Multimodal Index | Not measured | 60.0% | Only MiniMax M3 measured |
| IFBench | Not measured | 82.9% | Only MiniMax M3 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 81.0% | 83.0% | MiniMax M3 |
| DTBench | 97.3% | 78.9% | Grok 4.6 |
| LMCA | 48.5% | 33.7% | Grok 4.6 |
| Surface Evolver Bench | Not measured | 55.0% | Only MiniMax M3 measured |
| Furniture assembly | 40.0% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1429 | 1433 | MiniMax M3 |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1431 | 1433 | MiniMax M3 |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1426 | 1404 | Grok 4.6 |
| LMArena Vision | 1263 | 1251 | Grok 4.6 |
| LMArena Text: English | 1433 | 1443 | MiniMax M3 |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1420 | 1420 | MiniMax M3 |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1476 | 1466 | Grok 4.6 |
| LMArena Text: German | 1426 | 1428 | MiniMax M3 |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1378 | 1380 | MiniMax M3 |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1391 | 1373 | Grok 4.6 |
| LMArena Text: French | 1455 | 1444 | Grok 4.6 |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1414 | 1433 | MiniMax M3 |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1421 | 1426 | MiniMax M3 |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1430 | 1423 | Grok 4.6 |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1425 | 1443 | MiniMax M3 |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1456 | 1446 | Grok 4.6 |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1429 | 1419 | Grok 4.6 |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1421 | 1403 | Grok 4.6 |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1270 | 1263 | Grok 4.6 |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1289 | 1311 | MiniMax M3 |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1272 | 1259 | Grok 4.6 |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1270 | 1235 | Grok 4.6 |
| LMArena Vision: recognizing things | Not measured | 1197 | Only MiniMax M3 measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1262 | 1234 | Grok 4.6 |
| LMArena Document | 1452 | 1435 | Grok 4.6 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | MiniMax M3 | 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
MiniMax M3 costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
MiniMax M3 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
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.
| Specification | SpaceXAI Grok 4.6 | MiniMax M3 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | xAI | MiniMax |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | August 12, 2026 | May 31, 2026 |
| Context window | 500K | 1.05M |
| Input $/Mtok | $2.00 | $0.30 |
| Output $/Mtok | $6.00 | $1.20 |
| Coding index | 76.4 | 57.8 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 2 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.82 | $0.56 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Grok 4.6 better than MiniMax M3 for coding?
Pick Grok 4.6 for coding: it scores 76.4 on the Vibe Coding Index against 57.8 for MiniMax M3. Pick MiniMax M3 when output tokens cost 5.0x less, or when a solved task costs $0.56 against $0.82.
Which is cheaper, Grok 4.6 or MiniMax M3?
Grok 4.6 costs $2.00 per million input tokens and $6.00 per million output tokens; MiniMax M3 costs $0.30 and $1.20. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Grok 4.6 costs $0.82 and MiniMax M3 $0.56.
Which has the bigger context window, Grok 4.6 or MiniMax M3?
MiniMax M3, with 1.05M tokens against 500K.
How many benchmarks is the Grok 4.6 vs MiniMax M3 comparison based on?
106 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Grok 4.6's coding index rests on 2 independent benchmarks and MiniMax M3's on 2. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.