MiniMax M2.1 vs MiniMax M3

Choose MiniMax M2.1 if you want tool-heavy personal and autonomous agents on a budget. Choose MiniMax M3 if you want open-weight autonomous agents that lean on tool use.

In our editorial scoring, MiniMax M3 leads in 3 of five dimensions (output quality, agentic ability and reliability), while MiniMax M2.1 leads in 2. On price, MiniMax M2.1 runs about $0.49 per 1M tokens (blended) and is open-weight; MiniMax M3 is about $0.57 and open-weight.

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.