Gemini 3.5 Flash vs MiniMax M2
Benchmarks, API pricing and specs, head to head. Data updated 2026-06-10.
Google · May 2026
Google's I/O 2026 headliner: near-Pro intelligence at Flash speed, 78.8% on SWE-bench Verified with full multimodal input.
MiniMax · Oct 2025
A 10B-active MoE tuned purely for agents and code — striking capability-per-active-parameter at rock-bottom prices.
The verdict
Gemini 3.5 Flash wins 1 of the 1 benchmarks these models share, against 0 for MiniMax M2. On price the gap is dramatic: MiniMax M2 works out roughly 6.4x cheaper per blended million tokens. Gemini 3.5 Flash also takes 1M of context versus 205K for MiniMax M2. And MiniMax M2 is open-weights (MIT), so it can be self-hosted — a structural advantage if data control or vendor independence matters.
Benchmark head-to-head 1–0
Specs & pricing
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | MiniMax M2 | |
|---|---|---|
| modhub Index | — | 68.9 |
| Input price / 1M | $1.5 | $0.3 |
| Output price / 1M | $9 | $1.2 |
| Context window | 1M | 205K |
| Max output | 66K | — |
| Open weights | no | yes (MIT) |
| Reasoning model | yes | yes |
| Multimodal input | text, image, audio, video | text |
| Knowledge cutoff | Feb 2026 | Jun 2025 |
| Released | May 2026 | Oct 2025 |
| Example monthly cost* | $28.50 | $4.80 |
* 10M input + 1.5M output tokens per month at list prices, no caching. Green = better value on that row.
Frequently asked questions
- Which is better, Gemini 3.5 Flash or MiniMax M2?
- Gemini 3.5 Flash wins 1 of the 1 benchmarks these models share, against 0 for MiniMax M2. On price the gap is dramatic: MiniMax M2 works out roughly 6.4x cheaper per blended million tokens. Gemini 3.5 Flash also takes 1M of context versus 205K for MiniMax M2. And MiniMax M2 is open-weights (MIT), so it can be self-hosted — a structural advantage if data control or vendor independence matters.
- Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.5 Flash or MiniMax M2?
- Gemini 3.5 Flash costs $1.5/$9 per million input/output tokens, while MiniMax M2 costs $0.3/$1.2. For a typical workload of 10M input and 1.5M output tokens per month, that's $28.50 versus $4.80.
- Which model is better for coding, Gemini 3.5 Flash or MiniMax M2?
- On SWE-bench Verified — the standard agentic-coding benchmark — Gemini 3.5 Flash scores 78.8% versus 69.4% for MiniMax M2, making Gemini 3.5 Flash the stronger pick for coding agents.