Compare / Qwen3.5-35B-A3B vs MiniMax-M2.7

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B vs MiniMax-M2.7

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 22 results on 4 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3.5-35B-A3B Released 24 Feb 2026 · $0.16 in · $1.30 out
MiniMaxMiniMax-M2.7 Released 18 Mar 2026 · $0.30 in · $1.20 out
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B wins 5MiniMax-M2.7 wins 17

Of the 22 results both models have, the better value on each. Results whose reported ranges overlap are too close to call.

Results as of 13 October 2026 (catalogue release 2026-10-13-2e2420e3c5cc). See also Alibaba vs MiniMax, every model from both labs.

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or MiniMax-M2.7? The short answer

Pick MiniMax-M2.7: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 22.8 against 19.3) at about the same price.

  • They cost about the same: $0.45 and $0.52 per million tokens (three input to one output).
  • MiniMax-M2.7 scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 22.8 against 19.3.
  • MiniMax-M2.7 is newer: released 18 Mar 2026, against 24 Feb 2026 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: MiniMax-M2.7 does better for agents and tool use and reasoning and knowledge.

Head to head

19.3
Intelligence Index
22.8
$0.45
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$0.52
262,144
Context window, tokens
204,800

Every fact side by side

Qwen3.5-35B-A3BMiniMax-M2.7
Price per million tokens$0.16 in · $1.30 out$0.30 in · $1.20 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.45$0.52
Cheapest host, blended$0.25 (Darkbloom, FP4)$0.37 (GMICloud, FP8)
Cached input, per million–$0.060 cached input
Intelligence Index19.322.8
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second––
Context window262,144 tokens204,800 tokens
Released24 Feb 202618 Mar 2026 (newer)
WeightsOpenOpen
Developer based inChinaChina

Prices are the developer's list price where we have read it, otherwise the typical host on OpenRouter; see every model's price. Intelligence and speed from Artificial Analysis.

Which is better for what

Each model's rank among the models on sale today, for each kind of work, from our own benchmarks and licensed sources. Further right is better; the better rank is in green.

Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls 116 of 164 103 of 164
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 92 of 198 72 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 108 of 188 109 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 112 of 152 126 of 152

Every shared result

Each model's best result on every measure both have, grouped by benchmark, with the setting that produced it. Under each measure, every model that benchmark has measured is a grey tick, best to the right, so you can see where the two sit in the field. The headline measures of each benchmark come first; the rest are under "Show all". Green marks the better value; where a source reports ranges that overlap, neither is marked.

MeasureQwen3.5-35B-A3BMiniMax-M2.7
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 147 · 118 of 387 measured 1,394 1,415
Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 129 · 110 of 163 measured 1,407 1,422
Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 139 · 101 of 380 measured 1,403 1,424
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 108 · 87 of 243 measured 19.3 22.8
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 84 · 63 of 231 measured 84.5% 87.4%
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 106 · 74 of 242 measured 21.0% 29.6%
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 97 · 120 of 230 measured 42.6think-prefill reasoning 37.6
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 83 · 182 of 230 measured 17.0%no reasoning 36.0%
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 151 · 26 of 230 measured 0.33no reasoning 0.38
Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard reported by Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard · 2 results
Hallucination rate · Vectara% of summaries, lower is better 62 · 84 of 104 measured 10.5% 12.9%
Answer rate · Vectara% of documents, higher is better 31 · 55 of 104 measured 99.8% 99.4%
Show all 22 results (11 more)
MeasureQwen3.5-35B-A3BMiniMax-M2.7
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 4 results
Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 163 · 139 of 385 measured 1,342 1,364
Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 134 · 93 of 338 measured 1,419 1,453
Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 140 · 114 of 387 measured 1,386 1,407
Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 155 · 127 of 386 measured 1,363 1,387
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 7 results
Terminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks, higher is better 72 · 54 of 130 measured 40.8%no reasoning 55.4%
τ-bench banking% of tasks, higher is better 107 · 77 of 121 measured 4.9%no reasoning 9.9%
Artificial Analysis Coding Indexindex score, higher is better 79 · 54 of 131 measured 37.0no reasoning 52.6
IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 39 · 22 of 195 measured 72.5% 75.7%
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 99 · 54 of 233 measured 72.0% 78.3%
Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 74 · 36 of 190 measured 26.5% 39.4%
τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 45 · 60 of 193 measured 89.2% 84.8%

Quick answers

Is Qwen3.5-35B-A3B better than MiniMax-M2.7?

Pick MiniMax-M2.7: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 22.8 against 19.3) at about the same price.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or MiniMax-M2.7?

They cost about the same: $0.45 and $0.52 per million tokens (three input to one output).

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or MiniMax-M2.7?

MiniMax-M2.7 ranks 103 of 164 models on sale for multi-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls, against 116 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.

Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or MiniMax-M2.7?

MiniMax-M2.7 ranks 72 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 92 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.

Which is better for writing, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or MiniMax-M2.7?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B ranks 108 of 188 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 109 for MiniMax-M2.7.

Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or MiniMax-M2.7?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B ranks 112 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 126 for MiniMax-M2.7.

Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or MiniMax-M2.7?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B: 262,144 tokens, against 204,800 for MiniMax-M2.7.

Run Qwen3.5-35B-A3B and MiniMax-M2.7 on your own prompt

Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.