Undominated.ai

Alternatives to MiniMax M3

MiniMax LMArena 1432.1 $0.485/M on a balanced workload prices as of 2026-10-06

1 model is higher-scoring or cheaper, with neither dimension worse.

Of the 144 models carrying both an independent score and a published price at the same delivery mode, 10 score at least as high as MiniMax M3 and cost no more under at least one listed workload, with at least one of those dimensions improved. 1 matches or beats its recorded context, maximum output, input modes, tool use and extended reasoning. 9 have a recorded capability loss, named on every row.

Dominance is not a property of a model. It is a property of a model, a capability lens and a workload, and all three are named on every row. Scores are LMArena Elo, used under CC BY 4.0 from the official dataset; prices are blended per million tokens. A higher score is not a drop-in replacement.

This page is built only while a candidate improves score or price without worsening the other under a listed workload. When that comparison no longer holds, it is not generated.

Where it holds

WorkloadMiniMax M3 $/MRecorded capabilities preservedRecorded capability losses
Balanced$0.48516
Summarise$0.25717
Chat$0.54118
Code gen$0.75418
Agentic$0.27018

Workload mixes are defined on the methodology page. Cached input is priced at the cached rate, and reasoning tokens at the worse of the reasoning and output rates.

What you would be replacing

Intelligence1432.1
Context window1M
Max output512K
Input modestext, image, video
Tool useyes
Extended reasoningyes

Preserving recorded capabilities requires matching or beating these fields. Full record for MiniMax M3, or check MiniMax M3 against the whole catalogue.

Recorded capabilities preserved 1

Each option has a higher score or a lower price, with neither dimension worse under the listed workloads. It matches or beats MiniMax M3 on recorded context, maximum output, input modes, tool use and extended reasoning.

#ModelIntelligence$/MHolds under
1GLM 5.3 Flash Z.ai1469.6 +37.5$0.238
  • Balanced −51%
  • Summarise −48%
  • Chat −53%
  • Code gen −54%
  • Agentic −51%

Alternatives with recorded capability losses 9

These improve score or price without worsening the other under the listed workloads, but reduce at least one recorded capability. Read the last column before switching.

ModelIntelligence$/MHolds underRecorded capability loss
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash DeepSeek1462.5 +30.4$0.182
  • Balanced −62%
  • Summarise −74%
  • Chat −54%
  • Code gen −52%
  • Agentic −61%
  • no video input
MiMo-V2.6-Flash Xiaomi1456.4 +24.3$0.175
  • Balanced −64%
  • Summarise −58%
  • Chat −71%
  • Code gen −72%
  • Agentic −71%
  • 512K → 131K max output
Gemma 4 31B Google1443.4 +11.3$0.205
  • Balanced −58%
  • Summarise −41%
  • Chat −55%
  • Code gen −61%
  • Agentic −34%
  • 1M → 262K context
  • 512K → 16K max output
Hy3 Tencent1440.7 tie$0.231
  • Balanced −52%
  • Summarise −52%
  • Chat −52%
  • Code gen −52%
  • Agentic −51%
  • 1M → 262K context
  • 512K → 128K max output
  • no image, video input
Gemma 4 26B A4B Google1433.9 tie$0.127
  • Balanced −74%
  • Summarise −73%
  • Chat −72%
  • Code gen −73%
  • Agentic −70%
  • 1M → 262K context
  • 512K → 236K max output
DeepSeek V4 Flash 0423 DeepSeek1432.1 tie$0.113
  • Balanced −77%
  • Summarise −71%
  • Chat −81%
  • Code gen −82%
  • Agentic −78%
  • no image, video input
MiMo-V2.6-Pro Xiaomi1491 +58.9$0.478 chat
  • Chat −12%
  • Code gen −12%
  • Agentic −10%
  • 512K → 131K max output
MiMo-V2.5-Pro Xiaomi1465 +32.9$0.480 chat
  • Chat −11%
  • Code gen −12%
  • Agentic −10%
  • 512K → 131K max output
  • no image, video input
Qwen3.8 27B Qwen1440.7 tie$0.183 summarise
  • Summarise −29%
  • 1M → 1M context
  • 512K → 131K max output

What this compares, and what it leaves out

  • Quality is LMArena Elo, used under CC BY 4.0 from the official dataset. The 95% confidence interval on a difference between two scores is about ±10.47 points, so a gap smaller than that is marked tie rather than an improvement — see significance bands.
  • 204 further models at this delivery mode carry a price but no independent score. They are absent from the comparison in both directions — unrated is not a zero, and an unmeasured model is neither an alternative nor a worse buy.
  • Retired models are never offered as an alternative, and a model only competes against its own delivery mode: batch trades latency for price, so it is not a like-for-like swap.
  • Nothing here measures latency, throughput, rate limits or how a model behaves on your prompts. Two models with the same index score are not interchangeable.
  • Models with no higher-scoring or cheaper alternative that is no worse on the other axis are on the value frontier. Models with such an alternative are listed here.
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