MiniMax M3: what it costs to run
The price MiniMax lists for MiniMax M3, what a support reply, a document summary and an agent task cost at it, and where that puts it among 37 models.
US dollars per million tokens, standard rate, shortest context band.
- 1,000 support replies
- $1.38
- Cached input
- $0.06
- Context window
- 1,000,000 tokens
- Released
- 1 Jun 2026
- Weights
- Open
From MiniMax’s own pages, 22 September 2026.
MiniMax M3 costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens on MiniMax’s own API, and $0.06 for cached input. At those prices 1,000 support replies cost $1.38, the 8th cheapest of 33 priced models on our list.
What a job costs
Three jobs, 1,000 runs of each, at the list price above, and where each puts MiniMax M3 among the 33 models with a list price.
| Job | 1,000 runs | Among 33 |
|---|---|---|
| Support reply3,000 in, 400 out. | $1.38 | 8th cheapest |
| Document summary25,000 in, 1,000 out. | $8.70 | 8th cheapest |
| Agent task80,000 in (70,000 cached), 3,000 out. | $10.80 | 6th cheapest |
The token counts are ours, chosen to look like real work; the prices are MiniMax’s. All three jobs stay under 200,000 tokens a request, below every long-context surcharge on the list.
MiniMax M3 on real small-business tasks
What the AIGROW benchmark measured when MiniMax M3 was given 20 office tasks, each marked pass or fail by fixed checks.
- Success rate
- 75% of 20 runs passed (95% interval 53 to 89%), 23rd of 36 models.
- Cost per 1,000 passes
- $1.82, failed runs included.
- Answer time
- 6.4 s median, 45 s at the 90th percentile.
- Strongest and weakest
- Bookkeeping (100% passed) and product descriptions (0%).
The small print
What the base rate above leaves out, copied from the maker’s pages: surcharges, discounts, promotions and cache pricing.
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 M3 against the models it is weighed with
Each comparison puts both list prices side by side and costs the same three jobs on each.
- vs DeepSeek V4 Pro
- Two of the cheapest models that their makers position as frontier, both open weight.
Where the price comes from
Read on 22 September 2026. Each price is the standard rate for the shortest context band, with no batch or priority discount; long-context surcharges, batch rates and promotions are in each model’s small print. No price was taken from a reseller.
Pay a quarter of list price
AIGROW API credit is metered at the makers’ list prices, and $25 buys $100 of usage. The credit page lists the models it covers; ask about any other before buying.
Prices checked 22 September 2026