Llama 4 Scout vs MiniMax-M3
Which is better for the money: Llama 4 Scout by Meta 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
MiniMax-M3 scores 22.7 points higher (29.2 vs 6.5) but costs 7.3× as much to run the benchmark ($538 vs $73.6; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick MiniMax-M3 when you need intelligence above 6.5, and Llama 4 Scout when 6.5 is enough.
| Metric | Llama 4 Scout | MiniMax-M3 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 6.5 | 29.2 | +349.2% MiniMax-M3 is 4.5× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $73.56 | $537.98 | +631.3% MiniMax-M3 is 7.3× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 5.00s | 25.47s | +409.4% MiniMax-M3 is 409.4% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.18 / $0.66 | $0.30 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
MiniMax-M3 vs Llama 4 Scout: 349.2% more intelligence, 631.3% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 409.4% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Llama 4 Scout is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Xhigh) scores 34.60 for $66.8.
- MiniMax-M3 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
Llama 4 ScoutMiniMax-M3Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/llama-4-scout/minimax-m3 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/llama-4-scout/minimax-m3?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill