Standard Compute
Model comparison 2026

MiniMax M3 vs Step 5 Preview

MiniMax M3
MiniMax · Balanced · Open weights
$0.57/1M · 1.0M ctx
Step 5 Preview
StepFun · Balanced · Proprietary
$1.51/1M · 1M 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
MiniMax M3
Step 5
Maker
MiniMax
StepFun
Blended price / 1M
$0.57
$1.51
Input / output
$0.30 in · $1.20 out / 1M tokens
$1.00 in · $2.70 out / 1M tokens
Context window
1.0M
1M
Open weights
Yes
No
Tool use
Yes
Yes
Reasoning
Yes
Yes
Output Quality
6.3
8.2
Agentic Ability
5.0
7.6
Speed
8.1
7.5
Value for money
6.8
7.1
Reliability
8.4
8.6

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

Verdict: MiniMax M3 or Step 5?

Updated 2026-10-13

Choose MiniMax M3 if you want agents that need an open-weight model with a 1M context. Choose Step 5 Preview if you want mid-priced agent loops that want more capability than a Flash-class model.

In our editorial scoring, Step 5 Preview leads in 4 of five dimensions (output quality, agentic ability, value for money and reliability), while MiniMax M3 leads in 1. On price, MiniMax M3 runs about $0.57 per 1M tokens (blended) and is open-weight; Step 5 Preview is about $1.51 and proprietary.

Where MiniMax M3 falls short
  • Weak on long agentic tasks (2.0% in Artificial Analysis's Terminal-Bench 4.0 run)
  • DeepSeek V4.1 Flash scores higher for about half the cost per request
Full MiniMax M3 breakdown →
Where Step 5 falls short
  • Still a preview, so behavior and price can change
  • Only StepFun serves it on OpenRouter, so there is no provider fallback
Full Step 5 breakdown →

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