MiniMax M2 vs Mistral Medium 3.5
Benchmarks, API pricing and specs, head to head. Data updated 2026-06-10.
MiniMax · Oct 2025
A 10B-active MoE tuned purely for agents and code — striking capability-per-active-parameter at rock-bottom prices.
Mistral AI · Mar 2026
Europe's strongest model line: frontier-adjacent quality at $0.40/$2 with EU data residency and on-prem options.
The verdict
These two models don't yet share verified results on the benchmarks we track, so judge them on specs, pricing and intended use. MiniMax M2 is about 1.5x cheaper per blended million tokens (3:1 input:output mix). MiniMax M2 also takes 205K of context versus 131K for Mistral Medium 3.5. And MiniMax M2 is open-weights (MIT), so it can be self-hosted — a structural advantage if data control or vendor independence matters.
Specs & pricing
| MiniMax M2 | Mistral Medium 3.5 | |
|---|---|---|
| modhub Index | 68.9 | — |
| Input price / 1M | $0.3 | $0.4 |
| Output price / 1M | $1.2 | $2 |
| Context window | 205K | 131K |
| Max output | — | — |
| Open weights | yes (MIT) | no |
| Reasoning model | yes | no |
| Multimodal input | text | text, image |
| Knowledge cutoff | Jun 2025 | Dec 2025 |
| Released | Oct 2025 | Mar 2026 |
| Example monthly cost* | $4.80 | $7.00 |
* 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, MiniMax M2 or Mistral Medium 3.5?
- These two models don't yet share verified results on the benchmarks we track, so judge them on specs, pricing and intended use. MiniMax M2 is about 1.5x cheaper per blended million tokens (3:1 input:output mix). MiniMax M2 also takes 205K of context versus 131K for Mistral Medium 3.5. 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, MiniMax M2 or Mistral Medium 3.5?
- MiniMax M2 costs $0.3/$1.2 per million input/output tokens, while Mistral Medium 3.5 costs $0.4/$2. For a typical workload of 10M input and 1.5M output tokens per month, that's $4.80 versus $7.00.
- Which model is better for coding, MiniMax M2 or Mistral Medium 3.5?
- We don't yet track SWE-bench Verified results for both models; check their individual pages for coding-related scores.