Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) vs MiniMax-M3.1-Flash
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) 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.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick MiniMax-M3.1-Flash
MiniMax-M3.1-Flash vs Claude Opus 4.8 (Max): 2.2% more intelligence, 95.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 42.7% faster end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.8 | 42.7 | +2.2% MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is 2.2% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,873.86 | $283.18 | −95.9% MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is 95.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 39.48s | 22.62s | −42.7% MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is 42.7% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.15 / $0.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Claude Opus 4.8 (Max)MiniMax-M3.1-FlashToday's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/minimax-m3-1-flash · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/minimax-m3-1-flash?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill