Model comparison 2026

Claude Opus 5.5 vs MiniMax M3

Claude Opus 5.5
Anthropic · Frontier · Proprietary
$8.80/1M · 1M ctx
MiniMax M3
MiniMax · Balanced · Open weights
$0.57/1M · 1.0M ctx

Community vote

Pick a winner in each dimension. You can change your vote any time.

Output Quality
Correctness and depth of what it produces
Agentic Ability
Tool calls, instruction-following, and multi-step tasks
Speed
Tokens per second and time-to-first-token
Value for money
How much capability you get per dollar
Reliability
Consistent results: fewer refusals, loops and format breaks

Specs and pricing side by side

Spec
Opus 5.5
MiniMax M3
Maker
Anthropic
MiniMax
Blended price / 1M
$8.80
$0.57
Input / output
$4.00 in · $20 out / 1M tokens
$0.30 in · $1.20 out / 1M tokens
Context window
1M
1.0M
Open weights
No
Yes
Tool use
Yes
Yes
Reasoning
Yes
Yes
Output Quality
10.0
8.4
Agentic Ability
10.0
8.7
Speed
7.6
7.8
Value for money
7.4
9.1
Reliability
9.5
8.6

Pricing and capabilities synced from the OpenRouter catalogue. Scores are editorial (0–10).

Verdict: Opus 5.5 or MiniMax M3?

Updated 2026-10-13

Choose Claude Opus 5.5 if you want the hardest coding and agent work, as the default flagship instead of Fable. Choose MiniMax M3 if you want open-weight autonomous agents that lean on tool use.

In our editorial scoring, Claude Opus 5.5 leads in 3 of five dimensions (output quality, agentic ability and reliability), while MiniMax M3 leads in 2. On price, Claude Opus 5.5 runs about $8.80 per 1M tokens (blended) and is proprietary; MiniMax M3 is about $0.57 and open-weight.

Where Opus 5.5 falls short
  • Twice Sonnet 5.5's price per token for a small measured gain
  • Released September 2026, so its long-run track record is still short
Full Opus 5.5 breakdown →
Where MiniMax M3 falls short
  • Below frontier on raw quality
  • Newer, less battle-tested than V3.2/GLM
Full MiniMax M3 breakdown →

The agent matters as much as the model. Compare AI agents →

Every model on this page is included with Standard Compute

Standard Compute

Current frontier models Claude Opus 5.5 · Claude Sonnet 5.5

Your agents never stop.
Your bill never grows.

Frontier models when it counts. Efficient models when it doesn’t. The most intelligence per dollar. One flat bill.

Plans from $19/mo · cancel anytime · 7-day fair refund

7-day fair refund No credit card needed Billing by Stripe1,800+ agent users

Related comparisons