Model comparison

MiniMax-M2 vs o3-mini

MiniMax-M2 and o3-mini score almost the same on the Noometry Index (37.4 vs 36.7), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 15 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax-M2

MiniMax

37.4

Rank #204 Confirmed

o3-mini OpenAI

36.7

Rank #212 Confirmed

Summary

They share 15 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M2 scores higher in 4 categories and o3-mini in 5 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in math, where MiniMax-M2 leads 37.3 to 28.1.
MiniMax-M2 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $1.10 / $4.40 for o3-mini.
MiniMax-M2 accepts more context: 205K tokens versus 200K.
MiniMax-M2 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

MiniMax-M2 and o3-mini specifications
	MiniMax-M2	o3-mini
Provider	MiniMax	OpenAI
Noometry Index	37.4	36.7
Released	2025-10-27	2024-12-20
Weights	Open	Proprietary
Context window	205K	200K
Max output	131K	100K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.30	$1.10
Output $ / M tokens	$1.20	$4.40
Results tracked	21	51

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Category by category

Coding o3-mini leads

MiniMax-M2: 39.3 (#159), o3-mini: 40.8 (#132)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	o3-mini
LMArena Coding	1370	1378
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)	61%	—
Aider Polyglot	—	60.4%
LMArena WebDev	1297	—
SciCode	—	39.8%
GSO	—	1.3%
WeirdML	—	43.7%
LiveBench Coding	—	82.7%
CadEval	—	54%

Agentic & Tool Use o3-mini leads

MiniMax-M2: 25.1 (#109), o3-mini: 29.6 (#84)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	o3-mini
Terminal-Bench	30%	—
Cybench	—	22.5%
Vending-Bench 2	160.6	—

Reasoning MiniMax-M2 leads

MiniMax-M2: 19.4 (#258), o3-mini: 16.3 (#305)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	o3-mini
LMArena Hard Prompts	1357	1366
ARC-AGI-2	—	3%
SimpleBench	—	22.8%
Kagi LLM Benchmark	57.8%	—
NYT Connections (extended)	14.8%	—
ARC-AGI-1	—	34.5%
CritPt	—	0.3%
Chess Puzzles	—	17%
LiveBench Reasoning	—	89.6%
Mystery Game Puzzles	—	7%
DTBench	—	68.8%
LiveBench Data Analysis	—	70.6%
LMCA	—	19%
Epoch Capabilities Index	—	140.34
ForecastBench	—	59.6
LiveBench	—	75.9%

Math MiniMax-M2 leads

MiniMax-M2: 37.3 (#160), o3-mini: 28.1 (#244)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	o3-mini
LMArena Math	1352	1396
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)	—	18.6%
FrontierMath Tier 4	—	0%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	76.9%
LiveBench Math	—	77.3%
MATH Level 5	—	96.5%
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)	—	12.4%
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)	—	4.2%

Knowledge o3-mini leads

MiniMax-M2: 37.0 (#163), o3-mini: 38.3 (#146)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	o3-mini
LMArena Expert	1337	1364
GPQA Diamond	—	77%
SimpleQA Verified	—	15.3%
Confabulations	—	17.9%

Multilingual Too close to call

MiniMax-M2: 45.3 (#171), o3-mini: 45.7 (#164)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	o3-mini
LMArena Non-English	1313	1319
LMArena Chinese	1366	1379
LMArena French	1335	1334
LMArena German	1355	1303
LMArena Russian	1331	1304
LMArena Spanish	1326	1321
LMArena Japanese	—	1286
LMArena Korean	—	1314

Instruction Following o3-mini leads

MiniMax-M2: 70.2 (#166), o3-mini: 75.1 (#72)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	o3-mini
LMArena Instruction Following	1328	1337
LiveBench Instruction Following	—	84.4%

Long Context MiniMax-M2 leads

MiniMax-M2: 40.5 (#153), o3-mini: 33.8 (#256)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	o3-mini
LMArena Longer Query	1331	1343
Fiction.LiveBench	—	50%

Writing & Preference MiniMax-M2 leads

MiniMax-M2: 53.0 (#162), o3-mini: 50.3 (#182)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2	o3-mini
LMArena Text	1340	1337
LMArena Creative Writing	1286	1286
LMArena Multi-Turn	1361	1320
Short-Story Creative Writing	—	61.7%
LiveBench Language	—	50.7%

Frequently asked questions

Is MiniMax-M2 better than o3-mini?

MiniMax-M2 and o3-mini score almost the same on the Noometry Index (37.4 vs 36.7), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2 or o3-mini?

MiniMax-M2 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; o3-mini lists at $1.10 and $4.40.

Is MiniMax-M2 or o3-mini better for coding?

o3-mini scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.8 versus 39.3 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax-M2 does, with 205K tokens against 200K.

How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M2 and o3-mini share?

15 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2 has 21 scored results on Noometry and o3-mini has 51.