Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs MiniMax-M3
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or MiniMax-M3 by MiniMax? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 28.4 points higher (57.6 vs 29.2) but costs 16× as much to run the benchmark ($8708 vs $538; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) when you need intelligence above 29.2, and MiniMax-M3 when 29.2 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | MiniMax-M3 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 57.6 | 29.2 | −49.3% MiniMax-M3 is 49.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $8,708.20 | $537.98 | −93.8% MiniMax-M3 is 93.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 626.13s | 26.74s | −95.7% MiniMax-M3 is 95.7% faster |
| 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 (Max, Default Fallback): 49.3% less intelligence, 93.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 95.7% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- 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 (Max, Default Fallback)MiniMax-M3Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
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