MiniMax-M3 vs Ministral 3 14B
Which is better for the money: MiniMax-M3 by MiniMax or Ministral 3 14B by Mistral? 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
MiniMax-M3 scores 23.2 points higher (29.2 vs 6.0) but costs 14× as much to run the benchmark ($538 vs $37.6; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick MiniMax-M3 when you need intelligence above 6.0, and Ministral 3 14B when 6.0 is enough.
| Metric | MiniMax-M3 | Ministral 3 14B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 29.2 | 6.0 | −79.5% Ministral 3 14B is 79.5% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $537.98 | $37.56 | −93.0% Ministral 3 14B is 93.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 24.32s | 7.71s | −68.3% Ministral 3 14B is 68.3% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.30 / $1.20 | $0.20 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Video | Text, Image |
Ministral 3 14B vs MiniMax-M3: 79.5% less intelligence, 93.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 68.3% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- MiniMax-M3 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
- Ministral 3 14B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Medium) scores 29.90 for $31.2.
MiniMax-M3Ministral 3 14BToday'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/minimax-m3/ministral-3-14b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/minimax-m3/ministral-3-14b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill