// head_to_head
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite vs MiniMax M3.1 Flash
Published LiveBench scores across all seven categories, live list pricing, context windows, and the measured cost of a point of capability — for both models, side by side.
MiniMax M3.1 Flash is the cheaper of the two; neither can be ranked on quality here.
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite does not have a published LiveBench run, so this comparison covers price, context and declared capabilities only. A missing score means "not evaluated", not "worse" — the right way to separate these two is an eval on your own workload.
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite
- Blended / 1M
- $0.563
- Context
- 1.0M
- Released
- May 7, 2026
- Overall score
- Not evaluated
minimax
MiniMax M3.1 Flash
- Blended / 1M
- $0.262
- Context
- 1.0M
- Released
- Oct 19, 2026
- Overall score
- 66.9
Specs and pricing
| Metric | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | MiniMax M3.1 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench overall Weighted mean of the seven LiveBench category scores, 0–100. Higher is better. | — | 66.9 |
| Cost per point Measured benchmark spend divided by overall score — dollars per point of capability. | — | $0.0015 |
| Blended price / 1M 3:1 input:output mix, the usual shape of production traffic. | $0.563 | $0.262win |
| Input price / 1M | $0.250 | $0.150win |
| Output price / 1M | $1.50 | $0.600win |
| Cached input / 1M Price of an input token served from the prompt cache, where the provider publishes one. | $0.025 | $0.015win |
| Context window | 1.0M | 1.0M |
| Max output tokens | 66K | 524Kwin |
Benchmarks by category
An overall score averages away the thing you probably care about. These are the seven LiveBench categories scored separately — Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite on top, MiniMax M3.1 Flash below, both out of 100.
What each one costs to run
Per-token prices are hard to feel. These are monthly list costs for both models across five workload shapes, using each provider's published cached-input rate where there is one.
| Workload | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | MiniMax M3.1 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Support chatbot 1.2K in / 400 out × 200K requests | $163.80/mo | $74.28/mo |
| RAG assistant 8K in / 600 out × 100K requests | $200.00/mo | $102.00/mo |
| Coding agent 40K in / 4K out × 20K requests | $194.00/mo | $92.40/mo |
| Document extraction 20K in / 1.5K out × 50K requests | $351.25/mo | $188.25/mo |
| Bulk classification 500 in / 20 out × 5M requests | $662.50/mo | $367.50/mo |
Which should you pick?
You are cost-constrained
MiniMax M3.1 Flash
Cheaper on blended list price at $0.262 per million tokens.
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite vs MiniMax M3.1 Flash FAQ
Which is better, Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite or MiniMax M3.1 Flash?
MiniMax M3.1 Flash is the cheaper of the two; neither can be ranked on quality here. Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite does not have a published LiveBench run, so this comparison covers price, context and declared capabilities only. A missing score means "not evaluated", not "worse" — the right way to separate these two is an eval on your own workload.
Is Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite cheaper than MiniMax M3.1 Flash?
MiniMax M3.1 Flash is cheaper. On a 3:1 input:output blend, Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite lists at $0.563 per million tokens and MiniMax M3.1 Flash at $0.262 — MiniMax M3.1 Flash is 2.1× cheaper. Input and output are priced separately — Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite charges $0.250 in and $1.50 out, MiniMax M3.1 Flash charges $0.150 and $0.600 — so the model that looks cheaper flips depending on how output-heavy your workload is.
Does Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite or MiniMax M3.1 Flash have a bigger context window?
They are effectively the same — 1.0M for Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite and 1.0M for MiniMax M3.1 Flash.
Do Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite and MiniMax M3.1 Flash support prompt caching?
Both publish a cached-input rate: $0.025 per million for Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite and $0.015 for MiniMax M3.1 Flash, against full input rates of $0.250 and $0.150. On a workload with a long stable prefix — a system prompt, a tool schema, a retrieved corpus — that changes the economics more than the headline price does.
Related comparisons
How these numbers are produced
- Price — provider list price from OpenRouter, refreshed every 15 minutes. “Blended” is a 3:1 input:output mix.
- Scores — LiveBench release 2026-10-25, using their own category map. Each model shows its strongest published run. A blank means “not evaluated”, never “bad”.
- Cost per point — the measured dollars LiveBench spent on the run, divided by the score it earned.
- “Win” — awarded only past a threshold: one full point on a benchmark score, 10% on a price, 25% on a context window. Anything tighter reports as a tie, because effort settings alone move a LiveBench score by more than that.
Published benchmarks rank models on someone else's tasks. Before committing, see LLM & agent evaluation for building an eval on your own.