MiniMax M3.1 Flash vs Mistral Medium 3.5
MiniMax M3.1 Flash leads Mistral Medium 3.5 on coding, 59.0 to 25.5 on the Vibe Coding Index, and MiniMax M3.1 Flash costs 12.5x less per output token ($0.60 vs $7.50 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 10 benchmarks have a result for both.
MiniMax M3.1 Flash or Mistral Medium 3.5: which to pick
Pick MiniMax M3.1 Flash for coding: it scores 59.0 on the Vibe Coding Index against 25.5 for Mistral Medium 3.5.
Mistral Medium 3.5 is neither cheaper nor larger in context, and leads no benchmark both models were measured on.
- Shared results
- 10
- MiniMax M3.1 Flash only
- 10
- Mistral Medium 3.5 only
- 72
- Like-for-like categories
- 5 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 M3.1 Flash
MiniMax M3.1 Flash scores 59.0 against 25.5.
4 and 3 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
MiniMax M3.1 Flash
MiniMax M3.1 Flash leads, 42.7 against 14.2.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Mistral Medium 3.5 has a AA Agentic Index result, 7.0.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Mistral Medium 3.5 has a GPQA Diamond result, 34.9%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Mistral Medium 3.5 has a MMLU Pro result, 75.3%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Mistral Medium 3.5 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1142.
Directional only
General
Vals Index
No call
Only MiniMax M3.1 Flash has a Vals Index result, 53.8%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
MiniMax M3.1 Flash
MiniMax M3.1 Flash takes 1M tokens against 262K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
MiniMax M3.1 Flash
MiniMax M3.1 Flash $0.0004, Mistral Medium 3.5 $0.0053 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Mistral Medium 3.5 has the number, $6.02.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- MiniMax M3.1 Flash 59.0 from 4 benchmarks, Mistral Medium 3.5 25.5 from 3 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Coding, 45.0 points apart on average over 5 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI): MiniMax M3.1 Flash 73.9% against Mistral Medium 3.5 2.9%, 71.0 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- MiniMax M3.1 Flash $0.60 against Mistral Medium 3.5 $7.50 per million output tokens, 12.5x apart.
- Context window
- MiniMax M3.1 Flash takes 1M tokens, Mistral Medium 3.5 262K.
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 M3.1 Flash | Bars | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 5 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 2 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 1 | 0 | ||
| General | 1 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 10 | 0 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index50
| Benchmark | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | 83.9% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M3.1 Flash measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1587 | 1264 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash |
| AA Coding Index | Not measured | 46.9 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | Not measured | 66.4% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 25.3% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M3.1 Flash measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 73.9% | 2.9% | MiniMax M3.1 Flash |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | Not measured | 5.1% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 39.0% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| SciCode | 53.4% | 40.2% | MiniMax M3.1 Flash |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 33.3% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| ALE-Bench | Not measured | 764.0 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | Not measured | 1460 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | Not measured | 1458 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1609 | 1254 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1529 | 1308 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash |
| Neither model has a result on the other 28 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 42.7 | 14.2 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | Not measured | 141.4 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | Not measured | 7.0 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LiveBench research | 72.7% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M3.1 Flash measured |
| LiveBench browser | 92.0% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M3.1 Flash measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | 34.7% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M3.1 Flash measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | Not measured | 32.1% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 32.1% | 4.5% | MiniMax M3.1 Flash |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 34.1% | 9.1% | MiniMax M3.1 Flash |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | 7.5% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M3.1 Flash measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 11.2% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | Not measured | 94.2% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 32 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | Not measured | 34.9% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LiveBench reasoning | 82.9% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M3.1 Flash measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 74.8% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 48.0% | 13.8% | MiniMax M3.1 Flash |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | Not measured | 1436 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | Not measured | 1432 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | Not measured | 1445 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | Not measured | 1254 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | Not measured | 1230 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | Not measured | 41.4% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index3 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| ProofBench | Not measured | 9.0% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | Not measured | 1431 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | Not measured | 1440 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 11 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | Not measured | 75.3% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | Not measured | 44.2% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | Not measured | 58.8% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | Not measured | 68.0% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | Not measured | 28.9% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | Not measured | 33.8% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | Not measured | 1428 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | Not measured | 1409 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | Not measured | 1437 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | Not measured | 1426 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index9 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | Not measured | 1142 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | Not measured | 1076 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | Not measured | 1079 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | Not measured | 1121 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | Not measured | 1060 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | Not measured | 1121 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | Not measured | 949 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | Not measured | 1062 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LiveBench design | 74.0% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M3.1 Flash measured |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | 53.8% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M3.1 Flash measured |
| LiveBench data analysis | 71.4% | Not measured | Only MiniMax M3.1 Flash measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | Not measured | 37.6% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | Not measured | 67.7% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Vals Multimodal Index | Not measured | 34.8% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| IFBench | Not measured | 68.8% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 79.7% | 69.3% | MiniMax M3.1 Flash |
| DTBench | Not measured | 75.5% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMCA | Not measured | 26.1% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Surface Evolver Bench | Not measured | 26.9% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text | Not measured | 1421 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | Not measured | 1415 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | Not measured | 1374 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision | Not measured | 1222 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | Not measured | 1433 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | Not measured | 1404 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | Not measured | 1444 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: German | Not measured | 1453 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | Not measured | 1384 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | Not measured | 1448 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | Not measured | 1411 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | Not measured | 1395 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | Not measured | 1430 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | Not measured | 1423 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | Not measured | 1415 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | Not measured | 1384 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | Not measured | 1382 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | Not measured | 1240 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | Not measured | 1244 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | Not measured | 1233 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | Not measured | 1216 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | Not measured | 1198 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| EQ-Bench 4 | Not measured | 993 | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Mistral Medium 3.5 | 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
MiniMax M3.1 Flash costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
MiniMax M3.1 Flash costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
MiniMax M3.1 Flash 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 M3.1 Flash | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | MiniMax | Mistral AI |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | October 19, 2026 | April 30, 2026 |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.15 | $1.50 |
| Output $/Mtok | $0.60 | $7.50 |
| Coding index | 59.0 | 25.5 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 4 | 3 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | $6.02 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is MiniMax M3.1 Flash better than Mistral Medium 3.5 for coding?
Pick MiniMax M3.1 Flash for coding: it scores 59.0 on the Vibe Coding Index against 25.5 for Mistral Medium 3.5. Mistral Medium 3.5 is neither cheaper nor larger in context, and leads no benchmark both models were measured on.
Which is cheaper, MiniMax M3.1 Flash or Mistral Medium 3.5?
MiniMax M3.1 Flash costs $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.60 per million output tokens; Mistral Medium 3.5 costs $1.50 and $7.50. Cost per solved task is known for Mistral Medium 3.5 only.
Which has the bigger context window, MiniMax M3.1 Flash or Mistral Medium 3.5?
MiniMax M3.1 Flash, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks is the MiniMax M3.1 Flash vs Mistral Medium 3.5 comparison based on?
10 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. MiniMax M3.1 Flash's coding index rests on 4 independent benchmarks and Mistral Medium 3.5's on 3. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.