Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs MiniMax-M3 pricing
- For the Chatbot workload, MiniMax-M3 costs 7.8× less than Claude Sonnet 5.5.
- For the RAG workload, MiniMax-M3 costs 7.0× less than Claude Sonnet 5.5.
- For the Coding agent workload, MiniMax-M3 costs 5.6× less than Claude Sonnet 5.5.
Prices
| USD per 1M tokens | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| Input | $2.00 | $0.30 |
| Output | $10.00 | $1.20 |
| Cache read | $0.10 | $0.06 |
| Cache write | $2.50 | Not published |
| Batch input | $1.00 | Not published |
| Batch output | $5.00 | Not published |
Verified against the provider's official pricing page on Oct 9, 2026. Official pricing page
MiniMax's list price for its own API, as compiled by models.dev and checked Oct 10, 2026, 09:00 UTC. Prices on cloud platforms and resellers can differ. Provider documentation
Monthly cost by workload
| Workload | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| Chatbot1,000 in / 500 out tokens, 10,000 requests a day | $2,100/mo | $270.00/mo |
| RAG8,000 in / 500 out tokens, 5,000 requests a day | $3,150/mo | $450.00/mo |
| Coding agent50,000 in / 2,000 out tokens, 1,000 requests a day, 80% cached input | $1,320/mo | $234.00/mo |
Cost = input tokens × input price + output tokens × output price, 30 days a month. Cached input uses the cache read price. Cache write fees are not included.
Context and capabilities
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | MiniMax-M3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Context | 1,000,000 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens |
| Max output | 128,000 tokens | 512,000 tokens |
| Input | text, image, pdf | text, image, video |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes |
| Reasoning | Yes | Yes |
| Structured outputs | Yes | No |
Questions
- What is the price difference between Claude Sonnet 5.5 and MiniMax-M3?
- Claude Sonnet 5.5: $2.00 per 1M input tokens and $10.00 per 1M output tokens. MiniMax-M3: $0.30 per 1M input tokens and $1.20 per 1M output tokens. For the Chatbot workload (1,000 in / 500 out tokens, 10,000 requests a day), that is about $2,100 per month for Claude Sonnet 5.5 and $270.00 for MiniMax-M3.
- Which has the longer context window, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or MiniMax-M3?
- Both accept up to 1,000,000 tokens of context.
- Do Claude Sonnet 5.5 and MiniMax-M3 have prompt caching and batch prices?
- Claude Sonnet 5.5: cached input $0.10 per 1M tokens; batch $1.00 per 1M input tokens and $5.00 per 1M output tokens. MiniMax-M3: cached input $0.06 per 1M tokens; no batch price published.