MiniMax-M3 vs Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: MiniMax-M3 by MiniMax or Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) by Alibaba? 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 18.0 points higher (29.2 vs 11.2) but costs 1.6× as much to run the benchmark ($538 vs $329; premium vs mid-range cost classes). Pick MiniMax-M3 when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning).
| Metric | MiniMax-M3 | Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 29.2 | 11.2 | −61.6% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 61.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $537.98 | $328.86 | −38.9% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 38.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 24.85s | 42.11s | +69.5% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 69.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.30 / $1.20 | $0.14 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Video | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) vs MiniMax-M3: 61.6% less intelligence, 38.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 69.5% slower 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.
- Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
MiniMax-M3Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)Today'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/qwen3-5-9b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/minimax-m3/qwen3-5-9b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill