MiniMax M3 vs Claude Opus 4.5
Model Markets Rankings
Intelligence, Cost, and Efficiency
| Ranking | MiniMax-M3 | Claude Opus 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| CostLower is better · Published-token output estimate | #4 of 36$0.017 per LiveBench case | #34 of 36$0.380 per LiveBench case |
Ranks come from the current complete eligible cohorts. Green highlights appear only when both models are ranked in the same metric. Missing required inputs remain unranked, and the three dimensions are not collapsed into an overall winner.
Benchmark Performance
Available Benchmarks
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Claude Opus 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Document Arenadocument-2026-07-30-011508720696 · arena_rating · leader | 1,434.8298% of row best · rating · minimax-m3; 95% CI [1426.45297239, 1443.17975284]; votes 6263; rank 26 | 1,461.65100% of row best · rating · claude-opus-4-5-20251101; 95% CI [1451.22442739, 1472.08183979]; votes 7965; rank 19 |
| LMArena Text Arenatext-2026-09-01-011508720696 · arena_rating · leader | 1,435.2099% of row best · rating · minimax-m3; 95% CI [1430.86827835, 1439.53977389]; votes 44544; rank 77 | 1,447.19100% of row best · rating · claude-opus-4-5-20251101-high-32k; 95% CI [1443.28922560, 1451.09589305]; votes 36271; rank 46 |
| LiveBench2026-06-25 · overall · leader | 70.2691% of row best · percent · minimax-m3 · 15,530 output tokens / case | 77.39100% of row best · percent · claude-opus-4-5-20251101-thinking-64k-high-effort · 15,203 output tokens / case |
| Overall ResultCounted from the protocol-matched rows above | 0 benchmark wins | 3 benchmark winsOverall lead |
Third-party benchmark Only like-for-like primary-publisher results are shown; raw scores, relative scores, configuration, and token spend remain visible.
Technical Differences
Side-by-Side Facts
| Field | MiniMax-M3 | Claude Opus 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Developer | MiniMax | Anthropic |
| Family | Minimax M3 | Claude 4 |
| Model | MiniMax-M3 | Claude Opus 4.5 |
| Version | MiniMax-M3 | Claude Opus 4.5 |
| Lifecycle | active | active |
| Released | 2026-06-01 | 2025-11-24 |
| Knowledge cutoff | Unknown | 2025-05-01 |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
| Output modalities | Text | Text |
| Context window | 1,049K | 200K |
| Total parameters | 427B | Unknown |
| Active parameters | 23B | Unknown |
| License | other | Unknown |
| Open weights | Yes | No |
| API available | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hostable | Yes | No |
| Provider access | Deepinfra (Standard), Fireworks Ai (Standard), Hugging Face (Standard), Openrouter (Standard), Together Ai (Standard) | Anthropic (Standard) |
| Capabilities | chat, generation, reasoning, tools | chat, generation, reasoning, structured_outputs, tools |
14 comparable fields · 10 material differences · Pair passes the primary-source comparison gate
MiniMax M3 Capabilities
Claude Opus 4.5 Capabilities
Internal Comparison Graph
Related Comparisons
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|---|---|---|---|
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MiniMax-M3MiniMax | vs |  Qwen3.8-MaxQwen | cross-developer peersimage, text |
MiniMax-M3MiniMax | vs |  Kimi-K3Moonshot AI | cross-developer peersimage, text |
MiniMax-M3MiniMax | vs |  GLM-5.3Z.ai | cross-developer peerstext |
MiniMax-M3MiniMax | vs |  Hy4 previewTencent | cross-developer peerstext |
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MiniMax-M3MiniMax | vs |  Mistral Large 3Mistral AI | cross-developer peersimage, text |
Primary Evidence
Sources and Freshness
Questions
MiniMax M3 vs Claude Opus 4.5 FAQs
Is MiniMax M3 or Claude Opus 4.5 better for coding?+
This comparison does not currently contain a protocol-matched coding benchmark for both MiniMax M3 and Claude Opus 4.5, so Model Markets cannot name a coding leader from pricing, context size, or capability labels alone.
Which is cheaper, MiniMax M3 or Claude Opus 4.5?+
MiniMax M3 is $0.28 and Claude Opus 4.5 is $5.00 per million tokens, so MiniMax M3 is cheaper on this metric. MiniMax M3 is $1.10 and Claude Opus 4.5 is $25.00 per million tokens, so MiniMax M3 is cheaper on this metric.
Which has a larger context window, MiniMax M3 or Claude Opus 4.5?+
MiniMax M3 has the larger sourced context window. MiniMax M3 supports 1,049K and Claude Opus 4.5 supports 200K.
Which performs better in benchmarks, MiniMax M3 or Claude Opus 4.5?+
Claude Opus 4.5 leads the current overall benchmark count. The result uses 3 protocol-matched benchmarks from 2 publishers; it is not a universal quality score.
Can MiniMax M3 or Claude Opus 4.5 be self-hosted?+
MiniMax M3 is the only model in this pair currently marked as self-hostable. MiniMax M3 is open weight; Claude Opus 4.5 is not marked open weight.
Can MiniMax M3 and Claude Opus 4.5 understand images?+
MiniMax M3 is documented with image input; Claude Opus 4.5 is documented with image input. This reflects supported input modalities, not vision quality.
Which can generate longer answers, MiniMax M3 or Claude Opus 4.5?+
Neither has a larger sourced maximum output. MiniMax M3 is — and Claude Opus 4.5 is 64K.
Do MiniMax M3 and Claude Opus 4.5 support reasoning and tool use?+
MiniMax M3: reasoning, tool calling, and image input. Claude Opus 4.5: reasoning, tool calling, and image input. Feature support does not establish relative quality.
Which is available from more inference providers, MiniMax M3 or Claude Opus 4.5?+
MiniMax M3 has 5 sourced provider routes; Claude Opus 4.5 has 1, so MiniMax M3 has broader tracked availability.
Which offers better value, MiniMax M3 or Claude Opus 4.5?+
There is no universal value winner. Compare the input and output prices above with the matched benchmark result for your workload: cheaper tokens can be offset by different quality, token usage, latency, or provider availability.