Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs MiniMax-M3.1-Flash
Full profiles: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Anthropic) and MiniMax-M3.1-Flash (MiniMax): every benchmark, price and rank.
Updated · Data from 8 sources
As of 21 Oct 2026, Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max) and MiniMax-M3.1-Flash are neck and neck on quality (69.5 vs 61.9 on the BenchLeader Index, inside the ±7.6 margin of error), and MiniMax-M3.1-Flash costs 15× less, which makes it the better buy for most workloads. Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 for coding (69 vs 63); pick MiniMax-M3.1-Flash for knowledge (69 vs 65).
Claude Sonnet 5.5 benchmarks max Anthropic
MiniMax-M3.1-Flash benchmarks MiniMaxOpen in the comparison toolWhich to pick for…
The pick's numbers come first. Category scores on the BenchLeader scale (50 is the average model, 15 points one standard deviation). High confidence means a lead of half a standard deviation or more; under one point is called either.
| Use case | Pick | Why | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | 69 vs 63 category score; SciCode (AA) 61.0% vs 53.4% | Medium |
| Reasoning | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | 81 vs 78 category score; CritPt 31.4% vs 22.3% | Medium |
| Knowledge | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash | 69 vs 65 category score; AA-Omniscience 15.6 vs 32.3 | Medium |
| Long documents | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | 67 vs 65 category score; AA-LCR 82.7% vs 79.7% | Medium |
| Lowest cost | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash | $0.262 vs $4.00 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.011 vs $0.160 | – |
| Fastest first answer | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash | 406.5 s (Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max)) vs 20.5 s (MiniMax-M3.1-Flash) to the first answer token | – |
| High volume on a budget | Neither flagship | A smaller model is usually the better fit: Cheapest good LLMs, Fastest LLMs | – |
Key differences
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max) and MiniMax-M3.1-Flash are neck and neck on quality (69.5 vs 61.9, within the ±7.6 margin).
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max) is stronger in agents & tools, coding, composite, long context, maths, reasoning.
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is stronger in knowledge, multimodal.
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is 15× cheaper ($0.262 vs $4.00 per 1M blended).
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max) streams 1.3× faster (137 vs 105 tokens per second).
At a glance
| Spec | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Developer | Anthropic | MiniMax |
| Released | 28 Sept 2026 | 19 Oct 2026 |
| Context window (tokens) | 1,000,000 | 1,000,000 |
| Compared at | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max) | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash |
| Open weights | No | No |
| Price in / out / cached input per 1M | $2.00 / $10.00 / $0.100 | $0.150 / $0.600 / $0.015 |
Category by category
Category scores on the BenchLeader scale: 50 is the average evaluated model, 15 points is one standard deviation. A gap under one point is called level.
| Category | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max) | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reasoning | 80.6 | 77.6 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Coding | 69.3 | 62.5 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Agents & tools | 69.7 | – | not comparable |
| Maths | 72.4 | – | not comparable |
| Knowledge | 65.0 | 68.5 | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash |
| Multimodal | – | 62.2 | not comparable |
| Long context | 66.5 | 64.9 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Composite | 92.4 | 66.5 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
Where sources disagree
Across the 14 benchmarks both have, Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads 12, MiniMax-M3.1-Flash leads 2. Every overall index that rates both puts Claude Sonnet 5.5 ahead.
| Overall index | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max) | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| BenchLeader Index | 69.5 | 61.9 | neck and neck |
| AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2 | 56 | 42.7 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Vals Index | 70.8† | 53.8 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
Each publisher runs its own tasks, harnesses and effort settings, so their overall verdicts can differ; BenchLeader reconciles them on one scale. † measured at another effort setting of the same model (the publisher did not test the one compared here).
Price, speed and latency
List prices blended at three input tokens per output token. Per-task prices use the token counts on the methodology page; suite cost is what Artificial Analysis paid to run its whole Intelligence Index.
| Measure | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max) | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Blended price per 1M tokens | $4.00 | $0.262 |
| Input / output per 1M | $2.00 / $10.00 | $0.150 / $0.600 |
| Cached input per 1M | $0.100 | $0.015 |
| Price per task: chat reply | $0.0038 | $0.0002 |
| Price per task: summarize a 30-page report | $0.030 | $0.0022 |
| Price per task: code edit | $0.027 | $0.0018 |
| Price per task: agentic coding session | $0.160 | $0.011 |
| Price per task: structured extraction | $0.0060 | $0.0004 |
| Cost to run a full benchmark suite | $5.46 | $0.220 |
| Output speed | 137 tok/s | 105 tok/s |
| Time to first answer | 406.5 s | 20.5 s |
| Time to a complete answer | 410.1 s | 25.3 s |
Per token is not per task: on Artificial Analysis' full suite Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max) cost $5.46 and MiniMax-M3.1-Flash $0.220, because Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max) used about 1.6× as many tokens for the same work, which a per-token price hides.
Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max) scores 69.5 and takes 406 s to its first answer token; Claude Sonnet 5.5 (xhigh) scores 67.8 in 27 s, Claude Sonnet 5.5 (high) scores 65.7 in 10 s. MiniMax-M3.1-Flash scores 61.9 and takes 20 s to its first answer token. Higher effort means more thinking before the answer: better scores, longer waits and more tokens billed. How reasoning effort changes scores and cost.
Every benchmark
91 benchmarks, grouped by category; each name links to the board and its leaders. † measured at another effort setting of the same model, shown for reference and not counted as a win.
| Metric | Publisher | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max) | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash |
|---|---|---|---|
| BenchLeader Index | BenchLeader | 69.5 | 61.9 |
| Agents & tools score | BenchLeader | 69.7 | – |
| Coding score | BenchLeader | 69.3 | 62.5 |
| Composite score | BenchLeader | 92.4 | 66.5 |
| Knowledge score | BenchLeader | 65.0 | 68.5 |
| Long context score | BenchLeader | 66.5 | 64.9 |
| Maths score | BenchLeader | 72.4 | – |
| Reasoning score | BenchLeader | 80.6 | 77.6 |
| Multimodal score | BenchLeader | – | 62.2 |
| Blended price $/M | BenchLeader | $4.00 | $0.262 |
| Output speed | BenchLeader | 137 tok/s | 105 tok/s |
| Time to first answer | BenchLeader | 406.5 s | 20.5 s |
| Context window | BenchLeader | 1,000,000 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens |
| Reasoning | |||
| GPQA Diamond | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 95.6% | – |
| Humanity's Last Exam | Scale AI / CAIS | 46.1%† | – |
| Arena Hard Prompts | Arena (LMArena) | 1506† | – |
| LiveBench 2.0 Reasoning | LiveBench | 91.6%† | 82.9% |
| LiveBench 1.0 Reasoning | LiveBench | 91.6% | – |
| Humanity's Last Exam (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 55.0% | 48.0% |
| CritPt | Artificial Analysis | 31.4% | 22.3% |
| MysteryMechanism | Vals AI | 49.1%† | – |
| Chess Puzzles | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 59.0% | – |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 65.0% | – |
| LMCA | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 68.3% | – |
| DTBench | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 97.3% | – |
| Coding | |||
| SciCode | SciCode | 61.0% | – |
| FrontierCode | Cognition | 52.1%† | – |
| Arena Coding | Arena (LMArena) | 1530† | – |
| Arena WebDev | Arena (LMArena) | 1768† | 1588 |
| LiveBench 2.0 Coding | LiveBench | 94.7%† | 83.9% |
| LiveBench 1.0 Coding | LiveBench | 91.4% | – |
| SciCode (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 61.0% | 53.4% |
| IOI | Vals AI | 83.1%† | – |
| Code Migration | Vals AI | 69.8%† | – |
| ProgramBench | Vals AI | 6.5%† | – |
| Vibe Code Bench v1.1 | Vals AI | 92.4%† | 73.9% |
| CursorBench | Cursor | 55.5% | – |
| ALE-Bench | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 1819.1† | – |
Show all 91 benchmarks
| Metric | Publisher | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max) | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | |||
| FrontierSWE | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 61.9% | – |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 63.6% | 25.8% |
| Startrise Frontend | Startrise | 75.9%† | – |
| FrontierCode 1.1 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 45.8% | 38.6% |
| Agents & tools | |||
| Terminal-Bench | Terminal-Bench | 61.8% | – |
| APEX-Agents | Mercor | 75.5% | – |
| Arena Agent | Arena (LMArena) | 12.7 | – |
| LiveBench Long Agentic | LiveBench | 78.8%† | 34.7% |
| LiveBench Browser | LiveBench | 84.0%† | 92.0% |
| LiveBench Agentic Coding | LiveBench | 56.3% | – |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | Vals AI | 83.2%† | – |
| GDPval-AA v2.1 | Artificial Analysis | 66.9% | 47.9% |
| Analyst Agent (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 57.5% | – |
| CyberBench | Vals AI | 59.6%† | – |
| Finance Agent v2 | Vals AI | 58.1%† | – |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark | Vals AI | 10.4%† | 7.5% |
| Legal Research Bench | Vals AI | 48.1%† | 34.1% |
| SREBench | Vals AI | 30.1%† | – |
| Tax Agent Bench | Vals AI | 42.0%† | 32.1% |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals) | Vals AI | 64.1%† | 25.3% |
| Terminal-Bench Science | Vals AI | 47.1%† | – |
| Vending-Bench 2 | Andon Labs | 11165.3† | – |
| AutomationBench | Artificial Analysis | 71.8% | 72.5% |
| GDP.pdf (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 25.8% | 20.8% |
| Harvey LAB-AA v1.1 | Harvey | 2.8% | – |
| AA-Briefcase v1.1 | Artificial Analysis | 1817 | 1474 |
| Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 53.3% | 3.3% |
| Maths | |||
| FrontierMath Tiers 1–3 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 88.8% | – |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 80.5% | – |
| OTIS Mock AIME | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 100.0% | – |
| ProofBench | Vals AI | 100.0% | – |
| LiveBench Mathematics | LiveBench | 96.1% | – |
| Arena Maths | Arena (LMArena) | 1500† | – |
| Knowledge | |||
| SimpleQA Verified | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 46.5% | – |
| LiveBench 2.0 Data Analysis | LiveBench | 59.5%† | 71.4% |
| LiveBench Research | LiveBench | 83.6%† | 72.7% |
| LiveBench 1.0 Data Analysis | LiveBench | 59.5% | – |
| AA-Omniscience | Artificial Analysis | 32.3 | 15.6 |
| BioMysteryBench | Vals AI | 81.1%† | – |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark | Vals AI | 75.7%† | – |
| MedCode | Vals AI | 52.9%† | – |
| MedScribe | Vals AI | 91.1%† | – |
| Public Benefits Bench | Vals AI | 67.2%† | – |
| GDP.pdf | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 31.4% | – |
| AA-Omniscience: accuracy | Artificial Analysis | 54.0% | 56.2% |
| AA-Omniscience: non-hallucination | Artificial Analysis | 53.0% | 7.2% |
| Instruction following | |||
| LiveBench Language | LiveBench | 78.0% | – |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | LiveBench | 56.8% | – |
| Arena Instruction Following | Arena (LMArena) | 1487† | – |
| Human preference | |||
| Arena Text | Arena (LMArena) | 1477† | – |
| Arena Creative Writing | Arena (LMArena) | 1465† | – |
| Arena Multi-turn | Arena (LMArena) | 1474† | – |
| Arena Longer Queries | Arena (LMArena) | 1500† | – |
| Multimodal | |||
| Arena Vision | Arena (LMArena) | 1287† | – |
| LiveBench Design | LiveBench | 85.0%† | 74.0% |
| MMMU-Pro | Artificial Analysis | – | 79.1% |
| SAGE | Vals AI | 51.8%† | – |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 39.3%† | – |
| AA-3D | Artificial Analysis | 1197 | – |
| Long context | |||
| AA-LCR | Artificial Analysis | 82.7% | 79.7% |
| MLCR | Artificial Analysis | 41.7% | – |
| Composite | |||
| Epoch Capabilities Index | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 166.2† | – |
| LiveBench 2.0 | LiveBench | 82.5%† | 73.1% |
| LiveBench 1.0 | LiveBench | 75.7% | – |
| AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2 | Artificial Analysis | 56 | 42.7 |
| Vals Index | Vals AI | 70.8† | 53.8 |
Data as of 2026-10-21. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.
What changed
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max): 1 score revision.
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash: 1 new result (Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA)).
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash: BenchLeader Index 62.5 → 61.9.
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash: 16 new results (FrontierCode 1.1 (AA), Arena WebDev, LiveBench 2.0…).
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max): BenchLeader Index 67.6 → 69.5.
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max): 2 new results (LMCA, DTBench).
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash: first results.
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max): 1 score revision.
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max): 1 score revision.
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max): 2 new results (Chess Puzzles, GDP.pdf); 1 score revision.
Related comparisons
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Claude Opus 5.5
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Gemini 4 Argon
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Muse Wonder Full
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash vs Claude Opus 5.5
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash vs Gemini 4 Argon
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash vs Muse Wonder Full
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash vs GPT-6 Astra
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Claude Fable 5.1
Rankings: Best LLM overall · Best LLM for agents · Best cheap LLMs
Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs MiniMax-M3.1-Flash: questions
- Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 better than MiniMax-M3.1-Flash?
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max) and MiniMax-M3.1-Flash are neck and neck on quality (69.5 vs 61.9, within the ±7.6 margin). The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; the two are within the margin of error as of 2026-10-21, so check the category scores for your use.
- Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or MiniMax-M3.1-Flash, and will that change?
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is cheaper today: $0.262 against $4.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. No price change has been announced for either.
- Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 better than MiniMax-M3.1-Flash for coding?
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher in coding (69 vs 63 on the category index, where 50 is average).
- Which is better for long documents?
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher on long-context benchmarks (67 vs 65). Both accept 1,000,000 tokens of context.
- Which has lower latency?
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash answers first: 20.5 s against 406.5 s to the first answer token, as Artificial Analysis measures it. Reasoning effort drives most of this: a higher setting thinks longer before it answers.
- Which is faster, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or MiniMax-M3.1-Flash?
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 streams faster: 137 against 105 output tokens per second.
- Do independent benchmarks agree on Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs MiniMax-M3.1-Flash?
- Across the 14 benchmarks both have, Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads 12, MiniMax-M3.1-Flash leads 2. Every overall index that rates both puts Claude Sonnet 5.5 ahead.
- When was MiniMax-M3.1-Flash released?
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash was released on 19 Oct 2026.