MiniMax M2.1 vs Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus leads MiniMax M2.1 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 27.0 to 20.9, and MiniMax M2.1 costs 1.6x less per output token ($1.20 vs $1.95 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 26 benchmarks have a result for both.
MiniMax M2.1 or Qwen3.6 Plus: which to pick
Only Qwen3.6 Plus has a coding score, 44.1 on the Vibe Coding Index; MiniMax M2.1 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick MiniMax M2.1 for output tokens 1.6x cheaper ($1.20 vs $1.95 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.59 against $1.19).
- Shared results
- 26
- MiniMax M2.1 only
- 8
- Qwen3.6 Plus only
- 57
- 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
No call
Only Qwen3.6 Plus has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus leads, 27.0 against 20.9.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus leads, 87.4% against 78.5%.
Same board, both measured
Math
AIME
Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus leads, 94.6% against 77.9%.
Same board, both measured
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus leads, 87.7% against 87.0%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus leads, 1243 against 1201.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus takes 1M tokens against 205K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
MiniMax M2.1
MiniMax M2.1 $0.0009, Qwen3.6 Plus $0.0013 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
MiniMax M2.1
MiniMax M2.1 $0.59, Qwen3.6 Plus $1.19.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- MiniMax M2.1 not benchmarked, Qwen3.6 Plus 44.1 from 3 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Math, 16.7 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- AIME: MiniMax M2.1 77.9% against Qwen3.6 Plus 94.6%, 16.7 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- MiniMax M2.1 $1.20 against Qwen3.6 Plus $1.95 per million output tokens, 1.6x apart.
- Context window
- MiniMax M2.1 takes 205K tokens, Qwen3.6 Plus 1M.
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 | MiniMax M2.1 | Bars | Qwen3.6 Plus | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 1 | 3 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 1 | ||
| Agentic work | 0 | 1 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 3 | ||
| Math | 0 | 1 | ||
| Knowledge | 1 | 5 | ||
| Web design | 0 | 7 | ||
| General | 1 | 2 | ||
| All shared boards | 3 | 23 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index13
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.1 | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1461 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| AA Coding Index | Not measured | 54.5 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 81.8% | 86.0% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 74.8% | 73.4% | MiniMax M2.1 |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 25.6% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | Not measured | 11.1% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 53.2% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 81.0% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 28.8% | 43.9% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Terminal-Bench | 36.6% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 623.8 | 670.1 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: coding | Not measured | 1467 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | Not measured | 1462 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1454 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1463 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | Not measured | 1472 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 26 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.1 | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 20.9 | 27.0 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | Not measured | 147.3 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.1 | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | Not measured | 40.9% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 7.7% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 14.9% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 32.9% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 85.4% | 97.7% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Vending-Bench 2 | Not measured | $5,115 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 36 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index03
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.1 | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 78.5% | 87.4% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | Not measured | 84.2% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 83.0% | 88.2% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 23.2% | 27.8% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | Not measured | 88.4% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Chess puzzles | Not measured | 14.0% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | Not measured | 12.0% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | Not measured | 1448 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | Not measured | 1454 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | Not measured | 1455 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.1 | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 77.9% | 94.6% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| MATH 500 (Vals AI) | 89.0% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | 87.8% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| AA Math Index | 82.7 | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 82.7% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | Not measured | 93.3% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | Not measured | 38.2% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: math | Not measured | 1449 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | Not measured | 1448 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index15
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.1 | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 87.0% | 87.7% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 75.5% | 84.2% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 55.8% | 51.5% | MiniMax M2.1 |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 58.9% | 61.9% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 66.3% | 74.7% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | Not measured | 68.0% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 91.2% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 34.1% | 36.9% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 87.5% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | Not measured | 44.1% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: science | Not measured | 1439 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | Not measured | 1442 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | Not measured | 1437 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | Not measured | 1430 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index07
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.1 | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1201 | 1243 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1220 | 1230 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1134 | 1211 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1206 | 1228 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1164 | 1202 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1190 | 1235 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1131 | 1160 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | Not measured | 1113 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index12
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.1 | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAGE (Vals AI) | Not measured | 44.9% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 80.8% | 77.0% | MiniMax M2.1 |
| Vals Multimodal Index | Not measured | 51.5% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| IFBench | 69.9% | 75.2% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 67.7% | 78.3% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| DTBench | Not measured | 81.9% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMCA | Not measured | 33.1% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| CL-bench | Not measured | 20.3% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text | Not measured | 1436 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | Not measured | 1424 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | Not measured | 1404 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: English | Not measured | 1445 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | Not measured | 1424 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | Not measured | 1477 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: German | Not measured | 1451 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | Not measured | 1390 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | Not measured | 1379 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: French | Not measured | 1455 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | Not measured | 1432 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | Not measured | 1434 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | Not measured | 1433 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | Not measured | 1438 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | Not measured | 1439 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | Not measured | 1418 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | Not measured | 1402 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 23 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | MiniMax M2.1 | Qwen3.6 Plus | 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 M2.1 costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
MiniMax M2.1 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
MiniMax M2.1 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 | MiniMax M2.1 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | MiniMax | Qwen |
| Weights | Open weights | No public weights listed |
| Released | December 23, 2025 | April 2, 2026 |
| Context window | 205K | 1M |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.30 | $0.325 |
| Output $/Mtok | $1.20 | $1.95 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | 44.1 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 1 | 3 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.59 | $1.19 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is MiniMax M2.1 better than Qwen3.6 Plus for coding?
Only Qwen3.6 Plus has a coding score, 44.1 on the Vibe Coding Index; MiniMax M2.1 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick MiniMax M2.1 for output tokens 1.6x cheaper ($1.20 vs $1.95 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.59 against $1.19).
Which is cheaper, MiniMax M2.1 or Qwen3.6 Plus?
MiniMax M2.1 costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 Plus costs $0.325 and $1.95. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, MiniMax M2.1 costs $0.59 and Qwen3.6 Plus $1.19.
Which has the bigger context window, MiniMax M2.1 or Qwen3.6 Plus?
Qwen3.6 Plus, with 1M tokens against 205K.
How many benchmarks is the MiniMax M2.1 vs Qwen3.6 Plus comparison based on?
26 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. MiniMax M2.1's coding index rests on 1 independent benchmark and Qwen3.6 Plus's on 3. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.