MiniMax-M3 vs Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
Side-by-side comparison of API pricing, specs, benchmarks, and capabilities
| Specification |
by MiniMax
3 providers:
Fireworks $0.300/$1.20
MiniMax $0.300/$1.20
Together $0.300/$1.20
|
by Google
|
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Status | Current budget Open weights | Deprecated budget |
| Released | ||
| Pricing per million tokens | ||
| Input | $0.300/Mtok | $0.250/Mtok |
| Output | $1.20/Mtok | $1.50/Mtok |
| Blended avg | $0.525/Mtok | $0.563/Mtok |
| Cached input | $0.060/Mtok | — |
| Specifications | ||
| Context window | 1M tokens | 1M tokens |
| Parameters | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Speed (TPS) | — | — |
| Modalities | ||
| Input |
textimagevideo
|
textimageaudiovideo
|
| Benchmarks sources: Vellum LLM Leaderboard / Google model card | ||
| GPQA Diamond | 93 | 50 vendor |
| SWE-Bench Verified | 45 | 30 vendor |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 22 | 15 vendor |
| ARC-AGI 2 | 20 | 18 vendor |
| AIME 2025 | 55 | 50 vendor |
| MMMLU | 76 | 72 vendor |
| BFCL | 65 | 60 vendor |
| HumanEval | 80.5 | 78 vendor |
| MATH 500 | 70 | 65 vendor |
| Avg benchmark score | 63.1 | — |
| Perf / dollar | 120.2 | — |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 66 | — |
| MCP Atlas | 74.2 | — |
| BrowseComp | 83.5 | — |
| OSWorld-Verified | 70.1 | — |
| Independent composite scores each on its own scale — not part of the average above | ||
| AA Intelligence Index | 29.6 | 16 |
| AA Agentic Index | 30.8 | 3.2 |
| AA-Omniscience Index (−100–100) | 1.4 | -16.4 |
| GDPval-AA v2 | 1304 ELO | — |
| LMSYS Chatbot Arena | 1441.8 ELO | — |
| Providers | ||
| Available from |
Fireworks — $0.300/$1.20/Mtok
MiniMax — $0.300/$1.20/Mtok
Together — $0.300/$1.20/Mtok
|
Google — $0.250/$1.50/Mtok
|
Cost at scale
1M tokens · 50/50 input/output| Volume | MiniMax-M3 | Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1M tokens | $0.52 | $0.56 | $0.04 (7.1%) |
| 10M tokens | $5.25 | $5.63 | $0.38 (6.8%) |
| 100M tokens | $52.5 | $56.25 | $3.75 (6.7%) |
| 1000M tokens | $525 | $562.5 | $37.5 (6.7%) |
When to pick which
distilled from the pricing and spec data above- cost dominates: $0.525/Mtok blended vs $0.563 — 6.7% less on the same 50/50 token mix
- your workload re-reads context (agents, RAG, long chats): cached input costs $0.060/Mtok — 80% off its list input price, a discount Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite doesn't offer
- you want open weights — self-host it, fine-tune it, or exit the API entirely; Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is closed
- provider flexibility: available from 3 providers, so you can price-shop hosts or fail over
- this pairing gives Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite no edge on price, context, cache discount, or measured performance — pick it only for qualitative fit (ecosystem, compliance, model behavior on your prompts)
Price movement
recorded changes since we began tracking each model · last checked| Model | Changes | Latest move | Old → new $/M |
|---|---|---|---|
| MiniMax-M3 | 1 | price cut on | $0.6/$2.4 → $0.3/$1.2/Mtok |
| Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite | 1 | price cut on | $0.45/$2.7 → $0.25/$1.5/Mtok |
The cheaper option here — MiniMax-M3 costs $0.525/Mtok blended on MiniMax.
Summary
MiniMax-M3 by MiniMax costs $0.300/Mtok input and $1.20/Mtok output, with a 1M-token context window. It supports text, image, video input and is available from 3 providers.
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite by Google costs $0.250/Mtok input and $1.50/Mtok output, with a 1M-token context window. It supports text, image, audio, video input.
On a blended cost basis, MiniMax-M3 is 6.7% cheaper than Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite.
The two aren't directly comparable on average benchmark score: MiniMax-M3 has published per-benchmark results, while Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite does not yet — it is measured today on independent composites (see the table above).
Note: Pricing is per million tokens. Actual costs vary with usage patterns, prompt caching, and batch discounts. Always verify against official provider pricing pages.