Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) vs MiniMax-M3.1-Flash
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, 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
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallba… scores 4.1 points higher (46.8 vs 42.7) but costs 3.6× as much to run the benchmark ($1027 vs $283; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallba… when you need intelligence above 42.7, and MiniMax-M3.1-Flash when 42.7 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 46.8 | 42.7 | −8.8% MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is 8.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,027.40 | $283.18 | −72.4% MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is 72.4% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 16.50s | 22.73s | +37.8% MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is 37.8% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.15 / $0.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
MiniMax-M3.1-Flash vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback): 8.8% less intelligence, 72.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 37.8% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (High, Default Fallback)MiniMax-M3.1-FlashToday's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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