MiniMax-M3 vs Ministral 3 3B
Which is better for the money: MiniMax-M3 by MiniMax or Ministral 3 3B by Mistral? 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
MiniMax-M3 scores 24.4 points higher (29.2 vs 4.8) but costs 44× as much to run the benchmark ($538 vs $12.2; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick MiniMax-M3 when you need intelligence above 4.8, and Ministral 3 3B when 4.8 is enough.
| Metric | MiniMax-M3 | Ministral 3 3B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 29.2 | 4.8 | −83.6% Ministral 3 3B is 83.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $537.98 | $12.23 | −97.7% Ministral 3 3B is 97.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 26.74s | 3.07s | −88.5% Ministral 3 3B is 88.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.30 / $1.20 | $0.10 / $0.10 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Video | Text, Image |
Ministral 3 3B vs MiniMax-M3: 83.6% less intelligence, 97.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 88.5% 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 3B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
MiniMax-M3Ministral 3 3BToday'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-3-3b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/minimax-m3/ministral-3-3b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill