Claude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback) vs MiniMax-M3.1-Flash

Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or MiniMax-M3.1-Flash by MiniMax? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.

Trade-off

AnthropicClaude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback)Off the frontier

Intelligence: 53.40
Total cost: $13129

MiniMaxMiniMax-M3.1-FlashOff the frontier

Intelligence: 42.70
Total cost: $283

Verdict

Depends on your budget

Claude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 10.7 points higher (53.4 vs 42.7) but costs 46× as much to run the benchmark ($13129 vs $283; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback) when you need intelligence above 42.7, and MiniMax-M3.1-Flash when 42.7 is enough.

Metric	Claude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback)	MiniMax-M3.1-Flash	Difference
Intelligence (higher is better)	53.4	42.7	−20.0% MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is 20.0% less intelligent
Total AA cost (lower is better)	$13,128.86	$283.18	−97.8% MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is 97.8% cheaper
End-to-end time (lower is better)	224.26s	21.66s	−90.3% MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is 90.3% faster
Price per 1M tokens (in / out)	$10.0 / $50.0	$0.15 / $0.60
Input modalities	Text, Image	Text, Image

MiniMax-M3.1-Flash vs Claude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback): 20.0% less intelligence, 97.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 90.3% faster end-to-end.

Open this matchup in the interactive picker Claude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback): what beats it MiniMax-M3.1-Flash: what beats it

Today's Pareto frontier

Against the frontier

Claude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 57.60 for $8708.
MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.

Claude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback)MiniMax-M3.1-FlashToday's Pareto frontierEvery other model

Matchup

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Agents: Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1/minimax-m3-1-flash · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1/minimax-m3-1-flash?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill