MiniMax M2.5 vs Ministral 3 3B

Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.

MiniMax M2.5 is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 59 to 27. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

MiniMax M2.5's sharpest advantage is in mathematics, where it averages 76.1 against 36. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is HumanEval, 65 to 15.

MiniMax M2.5 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $0.30 input / $1.20 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.00 input / $0.00 output per 1M tokens for Ministral 3 3B. That is roughly Infinityx on output cost alone.

Quick Verdict

Pick MiniMax M2.5 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Ministral 3 3B only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill.

Agentic

MiniMax M2.5

MiniMax M2.5

53.4

Ministral 3 3B

22.9

51
Terminal-Bench 2.0
19
62
BrowseComp
33
50
OSWorld-Verified
20

Coding

MiniMax M2.5

MiniMax M2.5

38.7

Ministral 3 3B

6.2

65
HumanEval
15
45
SWE-bench Verified
8
35
LiveCodeBench
7
41
SWE-bench Pro
5

Multimodal & Grounded

MiniMax M2.5

MiniMax M2.5

62

Ministral 3 3B

30.4

57
MMMU-Pro
25
68
OfficeQA Pro
37

Reasoning

MiniMax M2.5

MiniMax M2.5

69.6

Ministral 3 3B

30.1

70
SimpleQA
22
68
MuSR
20
83
BBH
57
66
LongBench v2
32
69
MRCRv2
35

Knowledge

MiniMax M2.5

MiniMax M2.5

55.3

Ministral 3 3B

24.5

73
MMLU
24
72
GPQA
23
70
SuperGPQA
21
68
OpenBookQA
19
73
MMLU-Pro
48
10
HLE
1
66
FrontierScience
28

Instruction Following

MiniMax M2.5

MiniMax M2.5

85

Ministral 3 3B

67

85
IFEval
67

Multilingual

MiniMax M2.5

MiniMax M2.5

82.1

Ministral 3 3B

59.7

84
MGSM
61
81
MMLU-ProX
59

Mathematics

MiniMax M2.5

MiniMax M2.5

76.1

Ministral 3 3B

36

73
AIME 2023
23
75
AIME 2024
25
74
AIME 2025
24
69
HMMT Feb 2023
19
71
HMMT Feb 2024
21
70
HMMT Feb 2025
20
72
BRUMO 2025
22
81
MATH-500
53

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, MiniMax M2.5 or Ministral 3 3B?

MiniMax M2.5 is ahead overall, 59 to 27. The biggest single separator in this matchup is HumanEval, where the scores are 65 and 15.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, MiniMax M2.5 or Ministral 3 3B?

MiniMax M2.5 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 55.3 versus 24.5. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, MiniMax M2.5 or Ministral 3 3B?

MiniMax M2.5 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 38.7 versus 6.2. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, MiniMax M2.5 or Ministral 3 3B?

MiniMax M2.5 has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 76.1 versus 36. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, MiniMax M2.5 or Ministral 3 3B?

MiniMax M2.5 has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 69.6 versus 30.1. Inside this category, SimpleQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, MiniMax M2.5 or Ministral 3 3B?

MiniMax M2.5 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 53.4 versus 22.9. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, MiniMax M2.5 or Ministral 3 3B?

MiniMax M2.5 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 62 versus 30.4. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, MiniMax M2.5 or Ministral 3 3B?

MiniMax M2.5 has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 85 versus 67. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, MiniMax M2.5 or Ministral 3 3B?

MiniMax M2.5 has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 82.1 versus 59.7. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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