Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) vs MiniMax-M3
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or MiniMax-M3 by MiniMax? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) scores 13.1 points higher (42.3 vs 29.2) but costs 1.6× as much to run the benchmark ($860 vs $538; both premium class). Pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise MiniMax-M3.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) | MiniMax-M3 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 42.3 | 29.2 | −31.0% MiniMax-M3 is 31.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $860.33 | $537.98 | −37.5% MiniMax-M3 is 37.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.16s | 24.85s | +122.7% MiniMax-M3 is 122.7% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.30 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
MiniMax-M3 vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback): 31.0% less intelligence, 37.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 122.7% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
- MiniMax-M3 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback)MiniMax-M3Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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