Skip to main content
AI Choice Engine

Model comparison

MiniMax M3 vs Mistral Medium 3.5

MiniMax against Mistral, compared on context, price, and verified benchmark results.

Catalog record checked September 26, 2026Individual provider fields may changeEvidence confidence: High — see receipts below

MiniMax

MiniMax M3

Frontier · Open weights

vs

Mistral

Mistral Medium 3.5

Frontier · Open weights

AI model capability comparison
SpecificationMiniMax M3Mistral Medium 3.5
ProviderMiniMaxMistral
TierFrontierFrontier
Context windowWinner: 1M262K
Max outputNot verifiedUnverifiedNot verifiedUnverified
Input / 1M tokensWinner: $0.30$1.50
Output / 1M tokensWinner: $1.20$7.50
WeightsOpenOpen
Parameters428B total / 23B active (MoE)128B dense
Reasoning levelslow, high, maxNot verifiedUnverified
Modalitiestext, image, videotext, image
LicenseNot disclosedUnverifiedModified MIT
API model idMiniMax-M3mistral-medium-3-5
ReleasedJune 1, 2026April 28, 2026
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (2026-09-26)Winner: 29.214.2
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (2026-06-01)66Not verifiedUnverified

Prices are USD per million tokens at standard rates, excluding batch and caching discounts. Bold indicates the better figure where one is objectively better. Values we could not confirm from the provider are shown as “Not verified” rather than estimated.

Benchmark receipts

Where each score comes from, and how far it can be compared across models.

  • 2026-09-26
    Artificial Analysis

    Composite index blending reasoning, knowledge, and coding evals into one 0–100 score.

    Comparable with caveatOnly same-version scores are comparable. v4.3.2 was rebaselined (the top score fell from 66 on v4.1.1 to ~58), so v4.1.1 figures must not be compared with v4.3.2 figures — check measuredAt.

  • 2026-06-01
    MiniMax blog (vendor, Terminus 2 scaffolding, 2h timeout)

    Agentic terminal work: multi-step tasks executed in a sandboxed shell environment.

    Comparable with caveatNot comparable with Terminal-Bench 3.0 or 4.0 (different task sets) or v1; harness configuration (container, time limits) also shifts results.

Pricing tiers

MiniMax M3: $0.30/$1.20 per MTok; open (community license). 428B/23B active MoE, native multimodal. Rate is the ≤512K-prompt tier; higher above.

Mistral Medium 3.5: Mistral first-party API $1.50/$7.50 per MTok; Mistral advertises up to 90% off cached input (exact cached rate not verified). Open weights under a Modified MIT licence. 128B dense.

FrontierOpen weightsRecord checked September 26, 2026

MiniMax M3

MiniMax M3 is an open-weight (community license) 428B MoE with native multimodal and 1M context.

Best for

  • Open-weight deployments
  • Multimodal
  • Long-context

Watch out

Community license, not fully open; verify terms.

FrontierOpen weightsRecord checked September 26, 2026

Mistral Medium 3.5

Mistral Medium 3.5 is the model Mistral calls its new flagship — a 128B dense open-weight model with a 256K context, powering its Vibe remote agents.

Best for

  • EU-hosted frontier work
  • Open-weight self-hosting
  • Mistral Vibe agents

Watch out

Far behind US and Chinese frontier models on the Artificial Analysis index; max output is not published. Check the Modified MIT terms before redistribution.

When the cheaper one wins

MiniMax M3 is cheaper on output at $1.20 per million tokens against $7.50 for Mistral Medium 3.5 — about 6.3×. Use the cheaper tier for classification, extraction, summarisation, and any task where the expensive model’s extra score does not change the accepted output. The expensive one only pays if your hardest task actually fails on the cheap tier. These are standard-tier API rates, excluding batch and cache discounts.

Run the model picker

Evidence confidence: High

How strong and complete the evidence behind this comparison is — not a prediction of which model is better.

  • Pricing verified on both sides — Input and output rates are verified for both models.
  • 3/5 core specs verified on both sides — Not published for at least one side: max output, reasoning levels.
  • 1 shared named benchmark with differing scores — Measured on: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index.
  • Verified within the last 90 days — Newest catalog check was 2 days ago.
  • Both models carry source citations — Each side has at least two catalog sources on record.

Source receipts

Each catalog figure was checked against the provider or an independent second source on the date shown.

Related comparisons

Diving deeper on one model? MiniMax M3 · Mistral Medium 3.5

Common questions

MiniMax M3 vs Mistral Medium 3.5

Answered from the verified figures on this page rather than general guidance.

Is MiniMax M3 or Mistral Medium 3.5 cheaper for input?
MiniMax M3 is cheaper at $0.30 per million input tokens, against $1.50 for Mistral Medium 3.5 — roughly 5.0× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; MiniMax M3 has tiered pricing: $0.30/$1.20 per MTok; open (community license). 428B/23B active MoE, native multimodal. Rate is the ≤512K-prompt tier; higher above. Mistral Medium 3.5 has tiered pricing: Mistral first-party API $1.50/$7.50 per MTok; Mistral advertises up to 90% off cached input (exact cached rate not verified). Open weights under a Modified MIT licence. 128B dense.
Is MiniMax M3 or Mistral Medium 3.5 cheaper for output?
MiniMax M3 is cheaper at $1.20 per million output tokens, against $7.50 for Mistral Medium 3.5 — roughly 6.3× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; MiniMax M3 has tiered pricing: $0.30/$1.20 per MTok; open (community license). 428B/23B active MoE, native multimodal. Rate is the ≤512K-prompt tier; higher above. Mistral Medium 3.5 has tiered pricing: Mistral first-party API $1.50/$7.50 per MTok; Mistral advertises up to 90% off cached input (exact cached rate not verified). Open weights under a Modified MIT licence. 128B dense.
Which has the larger context window, MiniMax M3 or Mistral Medium 3.5?
MiniMax M3 accepts 1M tokens against 262K for Mistral Medium 3.5. This only matters if you routinely send very long documents or large codebases.
Should I use MiniMax M3 or Mistral Medium 3.5?
Both sit in the frontier tier, so the choice usually comes down to price and context rather than capability. MiniMax M3 suits open-weight deployments; Mistral Medium 3.5 suits eu-hosted frontier work.

Next step

Choosing between them

The verified figures that separate this pair, computed from the catalog rather than restated boilerplate.

  • Input price: MiniMax M3 costs $0.30 per 1M tokens versus $1.50 for Mistral Medium 3.5 — a 5x difference at the headline tier.
  • Context: MiniMax M3 takes 1M against 262K for Mistral Medium 3.5 — only decisive if your prompts approach the smaller window.
  • Measured capability: MiniMax M3 leads Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index 29.2 to 14.2 (measured 2026-09-26).
Run the model pickerEstimate stack costAll model comparisons

Choosing a harness rather than a model — Cursor, Copilot, Claude Code, Windsurf, or Lovable? Compare agentic harnesses · Latest releases.