MiniMax-M3 vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Which is better for the money: MiniMax-M3 by MiniMax or Qwen3.8 Max (0902) 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
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) scores 16.2 points higher (45.4 vs 29.2) but costs 9.2× as much to run the benchmark ($4935 vs $538; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max (0902) when you need intelligence above 29.2, and MiniMax-M3 when 29.2 is enough.
| Metric | MiniMax-M3 | Qwen3.8 Max (0902) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 29.2 | 45.4 | +55.5% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 55.5% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $537.98 | $4,934.79 | +817.3% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 9.2× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 25.47s | 65.39s | +156.7% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 156.7% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.30 / $1.20 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Video | Text, Image |
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) vs MiniMax-M3: 55.5% more intelligence, 817.3% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 156.7% 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.
- Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
MiniMax-M3Qwen3.8 Max (0902)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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