MiniMax M3 vs DeepSeek V4 Pro
DeepSeek V4 Pro passed more tasks on the AIGROW small-business benchmark and MiniMax M3 has the lower list price. MiniMax M3 passed 15 of 20 tasks and costs $0.30 in and $1.20 out per million tokens; DeepSeek V4 Pro passed 18 and costs $1.32 in and $3.96 out.
AIGROW credit covers Claude Opus 5.5, Claude Fable 5.2, Claude Fable 5.1, GPT-6 Astra, Claude Sonnet 5.5, GPT-6.1 Sol, GPT-6.1 Terra, Grok 4.7 and Gemini 4 Argon. See API credit
$25 a month brings $110 of API credit and cancels any time; $25 once buys $100. US dollars, standard rate, shortest context band. Cost per pass from the AIGROW small-business benchmark.
- MiniMax M3
- $1.82
- Tasks passed
- 15 of 20
- DeepSeek V4 Pro
- $5.14
- Tasks passed
- 18 of 20
AIGROW small-business benchmark, failed runs included.
Two of the cheapest models that their makers position as frontier, both open weight. MiniMax M3 costs $1.82 per 1,000 passing answers on the AIGROW small-business benchmark, DeepSeek V4 Pro $5.14. 1,000 support replies cost $5.54 on DeepSeek V4 Pro and $1.38 on MiniMax M3, so DeepSeek V4 Pro costs 4 times as much.
What each one costs
The API price per million tokens and the cheapest app plan with each model, from the makers’ own pages. Each name opens that model’s full price page.
- MiniMax M3
- On the MiniMax API, MiniMax M3 costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens. MiniMax Code has a free plan and paid plans from $22/mo (Go); the plan list does not name MiniMax M3. Plan prices read 20 October 2026.
- DeepSeek V4 Pro
- On the DeepSeek API, DeepSeek V4 Pro costs $1.32 per million input tokens and $3.96 per million output tokens.
Side by side
Each maker’s published rate for its standard tier. Cached input is what a repeated prompt prefix costs once the provider has stored it.
| Fact | MiniMax M3 | DeepSeek V4 Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | MiniMax | DeepSeek |
| Tier | Flagships | Flagships |
| Input, per M tokens | $0.30 | $1.32 |
| Output, per M tokens | $1.20 | $3.96 |
| Cached input | $0.06 | $0.044 |
| Context window | 1M | 1M |
| Released | 1 Jun 2026 | 13 Aug 2026 |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
What a job costs on each
1,000 runs of each job at the two list prices. The gap moves from job to job because the models price input, output and cached context differently.
| Job | MiniMax M3 | DeepSeek V4 Pro | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Support reply3,000 in, 400 out. | $1.38 | $5.54 | MiniMax M3, 75% less |
| Document summary25,000 in, 1,000 out. | $8.70 | $36.96 | MiniMax M3, 76% less |
| Agent task80,000 in (70,000 cached), 3,000 out. | $10.80 | $28.16 | MiniMax M3, 62% less |
The token counts are ours, chosen to look like real work; the prices are the makers’. A model with no published cache price bills the agent task’s repeated context at its full input rate.
The small print
What each base rate leaves out, from the makers’ own pages: surcharges, discounts, promotions and cache pricing.
- MiniMax M3
- Shown as a 'Permanent 50% off' price (struck-out $0.60 / $2.40), recorded as the list price. Above 512K input: $0.60 / $2.40, cache read $0.12. Priority tier 1.5x. Open weights (self-host guide on the official docs, MiniMaxAI/MiniMax-M3 on Hugging Face). MiniMax’s pricing page
- DeepSeek V4 Pro
- Peak-hour rate, recorded as the list price. Off-peak (all hours outside 01:00-04:00 and 06:00-10:00 UTC on weekdays) is half: $0.66 / $1.98, cache hit $0.022. Peak and off-peak pricing started 2026-08-16. API name deepseek-v4-pro serves DeepSeek-V4-Pro-0813 (V4 first shipped 2026-04-24). Max output 384K. DeepSeek’s pricing page
Other comparisons
Every head to head on the list that involves MiniMax M3 or DeepSeek V4 Pro.
Compare MiniMax M3 and DeepSeek V4 Pro with 52 other models
The price list sets every model’s input and output price side by side, with what a support reply, a document summary and an agent task cost on each.
Prices checked 12 November 2026