// alternatives · October 2026
MiniMax-01 alternatives
Cheaper models that come close, budget substitutes, and the cheapest step up — chosen on published LiveBench scores and live list price, never on our opinion. Every model here supports image input, as MiniMax-01 does.
LiveBench hasn't published a run for MiniMax-01. The strongest benchmarked model at a similar or lower price is DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017, scoring 74.0 overall.
MiniMax-01: no published LiveBench run, $0.425 per 1M blended tokens, about $226.00/mo for a RAG assistant.
Benchmarked models at or below its price
MiniMax-01 has no published LiveBench run, so these are the highest-scoring benchmarked models priced no more than 25% above it — a known quantity to test against.
| Model | Overall | vs MiniMax-01 | Blended / 1M | RAG assistant | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017deepseek 24% more expensive. Head to head → | 74.0 | — | $0.525 | $194.40/mo | 1.0M |
| Claude Haiku 5.5anthropic 53% cheaper. Head to head → | 69.8 | — | $0.200−53% | $74.00/mo | 1M |
| MiniMax M3.1 Flashminimax 38% cheaper. Head to head → | 66.9 | — | $0.262−38% | $102.00/mo | 1.0M |
| GPT-6 Lunaopenai 53% cheaper. Head to head → | 64.6 | — | $0.200−53% | $74.00/mo | 1.1M |
| GLM 5.3 Flashz-ai 88% cheaper. Head to head → | 62.1 | — | $0.053−88% | $34.59/mo | 1.0M |
| Qwen3.8 27Bqwen 20% cheaper. Head to head → | 58.4 | — | $0.342−20% | $92.16/mo | 1M |
MiniMax-01 alternatives FAQ
What is the best alternative to MiniMax-01?
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017. 24% more expensive. Every suggestion supports image input, like MiniMax-01.
How alternatives are chosen
- Scores — LiveBench release 2026-10-25. Only models with a published run are suggested on quality; a missing model means “not evaluated”, not “worse”.
- Prices — live list prices from OpenRouter, blended 3:1 input:output. Monthly figures price a RAG assistant with the published cached-input rate where there is one.
- Same job — suggestions must support every capability MiniMax-01 has among tool calling and image input. Other listings of the same model (free or batch tiers) are variants, not alternatives, and are left out.
A few points on a public benchmark can hide large differences on your own tasks. Shortlist here, then decide with an eval — how to build one.