Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) vs MiniMax-M3.1-Flash
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (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 2026-10-25.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick MiniMax-M3.1-Flash
MiniMax-M3.1-Flash vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Max): 11.8% more intelligence, 96.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 87.6% faster end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 38.2 | 42.7 | +11.8% MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is 11.8% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,998.25 | $283.18 | −96.0% MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is 96.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 190.29s | 23.52s | −87.6% MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is 87.6% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.15 / $0.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5 (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 Sonnet 5 (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-sonnet-5/minimax-m3-1-flash · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5/minimax-m3-1-flash?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill