Head-to-head comparison across 1benchmark categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.
MiniMax M3
76
o3-mini
56
Verified leaderboard positions: MiniMax M3 #12 · o3-mini unranked
Pick MiniMax M3 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. o3-mini only becomes the better choice if you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.
Coding
+17.7 difference
MiniMax M3
o3-mini
$0.3 / $1.2
$1.1 / $4.4
N/A
160 t/s
N/A
7.12s
1M
200K
Pick MiniMax M3 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. o3-mini only becomes the better choice if you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.
MiniMax M3 is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 76 to 56. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
MiniMax M3's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 67 against 49.3. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is SWE-bench Verified, 80.5% to 49.3%.
o3-mini is also the more expensive model on tokens at $1.10 input / $4.40 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.30 input / $1.20 output per 1M tokens for MiniMax M3. That is roughly 3.7x on output cost alone. o3-mini is the reasoning model in the pair, while MiniMax M3 is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use. MiniMax M3 gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 200K for o3-mini.
MiniMax M3 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 76 to 56. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SWE-bench Verified, where the scores are 80.5% and 49.3%.
MiniMax M3 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 67 versus 49.3. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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