Model comparison
MiniMax M3 vs Muse Spark 1.3
MiniMax against Meta, compared on context, price, and verified benchmark results.
Catalog record checked September 5, 2026Individual provider fields may changeEvidence confidence: High — see receipts below
MiniMax
MiniMax M3
Frontier · Open weights
Meta
Muse Spark 1.3
Frontier
| Specification | MiniMax M3 | Muse Spark 1.3 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | MiniMax | Meta |
| Tier | Frontier | Frontier |
| Context window | 1M | 1M |
| Max output | Not verifiedUnverified | 131K |
| Input / 1M tokens | Winner: $0.30 | $1.25 |
| Output / 1M tokens | Winner: $1.20 | $4.25 |
| Weights | Open | Closed |
| Parameters | 428B total / 23B active (MoE) | Meta frontier model |
| Reasoning levels | low, high, max | low, medium, high |
| Modalities | text, image, video | text, image |
| API model id | minimax-m3 | muse-spark-1.3 |
| Released | June 1, 2026 | September 2, 2026 |
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (2026-08-14) | 51 | Not verifiedUnverified |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (2026-06-01) | 66 | Winner: 88.8 |
| DeepSWE 1.1 (2026-09-02) | Not verifiedUnverified | 75.4 |
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
- 2026-09-03: Meta launch table (transcribed by explainx.ai) (Vendor self-report; absent from the official tbench.ai leaderboard)Agentic terminal work: multi-step tasks executed in a sandboxed shell environment. Comparability: comparable with caveat — Scores across Terminal-Bench major versions (v1 vs v2) are NOT comparable; harness configuration (container, time limits) also shifts results.
- 2026-09-02: Meta launch table (Thinking mode: max — self-reported; not broadly available and NOT on the official Datacurve leaderboard)Agentic software engineering: pass@1 on real repo tasks with reported cost per completed task. Comparability: directly comparable
- 2026-08-14: Artificial AnalysisComposite index blending reasoning, knowledge, and coding evals into one 0–100 score. Comparability: directly comparable — AA occasionally rebaselines the index scale between snapshots — a score captured on one date is only comparable to same-snapshot scores (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. Comparability: comparable with caveat — Scores across Terminal-Bench major versions (v1 vs v2) are NOT comparable; 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. · Muse Spark 1.3: $1.25/$4.25 per MTok on Meta's Model API (cached input $0.15); a $0.10/$0.20 'contributor' tier applies when your data is used for training. Third-party reports put list at $1.50/$7.50 from 2027-01-01 — confirm before long-term commits.
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.
Muse Spark 1.3
Muse Spark 1.3 is Meta's September 2026 frontier refresh — a self-reported DeepSWE 1.1 field leader at $1.25/$4.25, with a 1M-token context aimed at autonomous agent workflows.
Best for
- Long-horizon coding agents
- Frontier quality below frontier pricing
- Meta ecosystem
Watch out
The headline 75.4% DeepSWE score comes from the 'max' thinking mode, which is not broadly available yet and is pending independent verification. The 131,072 output cap is per third-party API docs — Meta's own spec page does not publish it. Closed weights, unlike Muse Spark 1.1.
When the cheaper one wins
MiniMax M3 is cheaper on output at $1.20 per million tokens against $4.25 for Muse Spark 1.3 — about 3.5×. 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 pickerEvidence 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.
- 4/5 core specs verified on both sides — Not published for at least one side: max output.
- 1 shared named benchmark with differing scores — Measured on: Terminal-Bench 2.1.
- Verified within the last 90 days — Newest catalog check was 6 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.
- MiniMax M3: MiniMax — M3 (accessed 2026-08-29)
- MiniMax M3: MiniMax M3 release (accessed 2026-08-29)
- Muse Spark 1.3: Meta — Introducing Muse Spark 1.3 (accessed 2026-09-03)
- Muse Spark 1.3: Meta developer — Muse Spark pricing ($1.25/$4.25) (accessed 2026-09-03)
- Muse Spark 1.3: VentureBeat — Muse Spark 1.3 best results need a config developers can't broadly use yet (accessed 2026-09-03)
- Muse Spark 1.3: HaiMaker — muse-spark-1.3 (131,072 max output tokens) (accessed 2026-09-05)
- Muse Spark 1.3: Promptfoo — Meta provider docs (muse-spark-1.3 max_tokens ceiling) (accessed 2026-09-05)
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Diving deeper on one model? MiniMax M3 · Muse Spark 1.3
Common questions
MiniMax M3 vs Muse Spark 1.3
Answered from the verified figures on this page rather than general guidance.
Is MiniMax M3 or Muse Spark 1.3 cheaper for input?
MiniMax M3 is cheaper at $0.30 per million input tokens, against $1.25 for Muse Spark 1.3 — roughly 4.2× 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. Muse Spark 1.3 has tiered pricing: $1.25/$4.25 per MTok on Meta's Model API (cached input $0.15); a $0.10/$0.20 'contributor' tier applies when your data is used for training. Third-party reports put list at $1.50/$7.50 from 2027-01-01 — confirm before long-term commits.
Is MiniMax M3 or Muse Spark 1.3 cheaper for output?
MiniMax M3 is cheaper at $1.20 per million output tokens, against $4.25 for Muse Spark 1.3 — roughly 3.5× 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. Muse Spark 1.3 has tiered pricing: $1.25/$4.25 per MTok on Meta's Model API (cached input $0.15); a $0.10/$0.20 'contributor' tier applies when your data is used for training. Third-party reports put list at $1.50/$7.50 from 2027-01-01 — confirm before long-term commits.
Which has the larger context window, MiniMax M3 or Muse Spark 1.3?
Both accept about 1M tokens of context, so document length will not decide between them.
Do MiniMax M3 and Muse Spark 1.3 support the same reasoning levels?
MiniMax M3 exposes low, high, max, while Muse Spark 1.3 exposes low, medium, high.
Should I use MiniMax M3 or Muse Spark 1.3?
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; Muse Spark 1.3 suits long-horizon coding agents.
Can I self-host MiniMax M3 or Muse Spark 1.3?
MiniMax M3 publishes open weights, but self-hosting and third-party provider access depend on the licence, hardware, serving support, and availability. Muse Spark 1.3 is a closed model whose supported access paths are controlled by its provider.
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 $1.25 for Muse Spark 1.3 — a 4.2x difference at the headline tier.
- Deployment: MiniMax M3 publishes weights you can self-host; the other is API-only.
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