Model comparison

MiniMax-M3 vs Qwen3.5 Plus

MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.5 to 42.3 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 9 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax-M3 MiniMax

43.5

Rank #81 Confirmed

Qwen3.5 Plus Alibaba (Qwen)

42.3

Rank #103 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 9 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M3 scores higher in 2 categories and Qwen3.5 Plus in 2 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where MiniMax-M3 leads 58.4 to 46.0.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 71.1% for MiniMax-M3 and 86.7% for Qwen3.5 Plus.
  • MiniMax-M3 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.40 / $2.40 for Qwen3.5 Plus.
  • MiniMax-M3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

MiniMax-M3 and Qwen3.5 Plus specifications
MiniMax-M3Qwen3.5 Plus
ProviderMiniMaxAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index43.542.3
Released2026-06-012026-02-16
WeightsOpenProprietary
Context window1M1M
Max output512K66K
Input $ / M tokens$0.30$0.40
Output $ / M tokens$1.20$2.40
Results tracked4115

Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry

Category by category

Coding Not comparable

MiniMax-M3: 41.5 (#111), Qwen3.5 Plus: —

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkMiniMax-M3Qwen3.5 Plus
ALE-Bench640.02621.92
FrontierCode14.7%—
LMArena WebDev1482—
SciCode47.1%—
LMArena Coding1470—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

MiniMax-M3: 22.5 (#121), Qwen3.5 Plus: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkMiniMax-M3Qwen3.5 Plus
Vending-Bench 22,1580.54
APEX-Agents37.7%—
OSWorld 2.04.6%—
GBAEval0.9%—

Reasoning Qwen3.5 Plus leads

MiniMax-M3: 29.3 (#83), Qwen3.5 Plus: 32.0 (#67)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkMiniMax-M3Qwen3.5 Plus
Chess Puzzles14%22%
Mystery Game Puzzles8%17%
DTBench78.9%80.5%
LMCA33.7%36.4%
Epoch Capabilities Index147146.79
SimpleBench45.8%—
NYT Connections (extended)65.1%—
CritPt3.7%—
LMArena Hard Prompts1447—
Surface Evolver Bench55%—
ForecastBench61.4—

Math Qwen3.5 Plus leads

MiniMax-M3: 39.1 (#83), Qwen3.5 Plus: 47.9 (#55)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkMiniMax-M3Qwen3.5 Plus
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202571.1%86.7%
ProofBench18%—
LMArena Math1432—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)—21%
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)—2.1%

Knowledge MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 58.4 (#32), Qwen3.5 Plus: 46.0 (#78)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkMiniMax-M3Qwen3.5 Plus
GPQA Diamond90.9%84.8%
SimpleQA Verified—25.4%
Vectara Hallucination Rate—10.7%
LMArena Expert1462—

Multimodal Not comparable

MiniMax-M3: 39.5 (#45), Qwen3.5 Plus: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkMiniMax-M3Qwen3.5 Plus
LMArena Vision1254—
LMArena Document1435—

Multilingual Not comparable

MiniMax-M3: 53.2 (#70), Qwen3.5 Plus: —

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkMiniMax-M3Qwen3.5 Plus
LMArena Non-English1420—
LMArena Chinese1465—
LMArena French1445—
LMArena German1424—
LMArena Japanese1381—
LMArena Korean1372—
LMArena Russian1430—
LMArena Spanish1431—

Instruction Following Not comparable

MiniMax-M3: 75.7 (#56), Qwen3.5 Plus: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkMiniMax-M3Qwen3.5 Plus
LMArena Instruction Following1433—

Long Context MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 44.2 (#68), Qwen3.5 Plus: 42.9 (#109)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkMiniMax-M3Qwen3.5 Plus
CL-bench—19.8%
CL-bench Life—12.4%
LMArena Longer Query1445—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

MiniMax-M3: 62.3 (#79), Qwen3.5 Plus: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkMiniMax-M3Qwen3.5 Plus
LMArena Text1433—
LMArena Creative Writing1405—
EQ-Bench 41150—
LMArena Multi-Turn1441—

Frequently asked questions

Is MiniMax-M3 better than Qwen3.5 Plus?

MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.5 to 42.3 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M3 or Qwen3.5 Plus?

MiniMax-M3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 Plus lists at $0.40 and $2.40.

Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 1M tokens.

How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M3 and Qwen3.5 Plus share?

9 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M3 has 41 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 Plus has 15.

Related comparisons

Go deeper