// alternatives · October 2026
MiniMax M3 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 tool calling and image input, as MiniMax M3 does.
LiveBench hasn't published a run for MiniMax M3. The strongest benchmarked model at a similar or lower price is DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017, scoring 74.0 overall.
MiniMax M3: no published LiveBench run, $0.525 per 1M blended tokens, about $216.00/mo for a RAG assistant.
Benchmarked models at or below its price
MiniMax M3 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 M3 | Blended / 1M | RAG assistant | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017deepseek the same list price. Head to head → | 74.0 | — | $0.525 | $194.40/mo | 1.0M |
| Claude Haiku 5.5anthropic 62% cheaper. Head to head → | 69.8 | — | $0.200−62% | $74.00/mo | 1M |
| MiMo-V2.6-Proxiaomi 4% more expensive. Head to head → | 68.5 | — | $0.544 | $227.64/mo | 1.1M |
| MiniMax M3.1 Flashminimax 50% cheaper. Head to head → | 66.9 | — | $0.262−50% | $102.00/mo | 1.0M |
| GPT-6 Lunaopenai 62% cheaper. Head to head → | 64.6 | — | $0.200−62% | $74.00/mo | 1.1M |
| GLM 5.3 Flashz-ai 90% cheaper. Head to head → | 62.1 | — | $0.053−90% | $34.59/mo | 1.0M |
MiniMax M3 alternatives FAQ
What is the best alternative to MiniMax M3?
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017. the same list price. Every suggestion supports tool calling and image input, like MiniMax M3.
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 M3 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.