Model Comparison 2026

Gemini 3.5 Flash vs MiniMax M3

Gemini 3.5 Flash
Google · Balanced · Proprietary
$3.75/1M · 1.0M ctx
MiniMax M3
MiniMax · Balanced · Open weights
$0.57/1M · 1.0M ctx

Community Vote

Pick a winner in each dimension — change your vote anytime.

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 $
How much capability you get per dollar
Reliability
Consistent results — fewer refusals, loops, and format breaks

Specs & Pricing, Side by Side

Spec
Gemini 3.5 Flash
MiniMax M3
Maker
Google
MiniMax
Blended price / 1M
$3.75
$0.57
Input / output
$1.50 in · $9.00 out / 1M tokens
$0.30 in · $1.20 out / 1M tokens
Context window
1.0M
1.0M
Open weights
No
Yes
Tool use
Yes
Yes
Reasoning
Yes
Yes
Output Quality
8.9
8.4
Agentic Ability
8.9
8.7
Speed
9.4
7.8
Value for $
8.7
9.1
Reliability
8.9
8.6

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

Verdict: Gemini 3.5 Flash or MiniMax M3?

Updated 2026-06-22

Choose Gemini 3.5 Flash if you want high-throughput agents that need big context cheaply. Choose MiniMax M3 if you want open-weight autonomous agents that lean on tool use.

In our editorial scoring, Gemini 3.5 Flash leads in 4 of five dimensions (output quality, agentic ability, speed and reliability), while MiniMax M3 leads in 1. On price, Gemini 3.5 Flash runs about $3.75 per 1M tokens (blended) and is proprietary; MiniMax M3 is about $0.57 and open-weight.

Where Gemini 3.5 Flash falls short
  • Below Pro on hard reasoning
  • Occasional verbosity
Full Gemini 3.5 Flash breakdown →
Where MiniMax M3 falls short
  • Below frontier on raw quality
  • Newer, less battle-tested than V3.2/GLM
Full MiniMax M3 breakdown →

The model is half the story — the agent is the other half

The model picks the moves; the agent runs the loop, the tools, and the guardrails. Once you've chosen a model, see which agent gets the most out of it.

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