Compare / MiniMax M2.1 vs GPT-5.6 Sol

MiniMax M2.1 vs GPT-5.6 Sol

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 12 results on 3 sources that measured both models.

MiniMax M2.1
MiniMax · profile
GPT-5.6 Sol
OpenAI · profile
Results compared
12
Shared sources
3

MiniMax M2.1 or GPT-5.6 Sol? The short answer

  • MiniMax M2.1 is cheaper: $0.52 against $8.00 per million tokens, 15 times less.
  • GPT-5.6 Sol scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 47.0 against 20.9.
  • On our business benchmarks, GPT-5.6 Sol ranks higher for agents and tool use, reasoning and knowledge, writing and sticking to the facts.

At a glance

MiniMax M2.1GPT-5.6 Sol
Price per million tokens$0.30 in · $1.20 out$4.00 in · $20.00 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.52$8.00
Cheapest host, blended$0.52 (Novita, FP8)$2.00 (OpenAI)
Intelligence Index20.947.0
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second––
Context window204,800 tokens1,050,000 tokens
WeightsOpenClosed
Developer based inChinathe US

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 models available today, for each kind of work, from our own benchmarks and licensed sources. The better rank is in green.

Use caseMiniMax M2.1GPT-5.6 Sol
Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls 125 of 161 8 of 161
Professional workReal tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects not measured 1 of 51
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 86 of 195 7 of 195
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 106 of 187 21 of 187
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 116 of 153 47 of 153

Every shared result

BenchmarkMetricMiniMax M2.1GPT-5.6 Sol
Artificial AnalysisreportedArtificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score 20.947.0
Artificial AnalysisreportedGPQA Diamond% of questions 83.0%94.1%
Artificial AnalysisreportedHumanity's Last Exam% of questions 23.2%49.5%
Artificial AnalysisreportedIFBench% of instructions 69.9%72.7%
Artificial AnalysisreportedLong-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions 67.7%84.0%
Artificial AnalysisreportedTerminal-Bench Hard% of tasks 28.8%65.9%
Artificial AnalysisreportedΤ²-bench telecom% of tasks 85.4%85.1%
UGI LeaderboardreportedRequested-length error% off the requested word count 31.0%1.0%
UGI LeaderboardreportedStyle adherencescore from 0 to 1 0.410.37
UGI LeaderboardreportedWriting scorescore out of 100 41.665.4
Vectara Hallucination LeaderboardreportedAnswer rate% of documents 98.5%99.1%
Vectara Hallucination LeaderboardreportedHallucination rate% of summaries 11.8%12.4%

Bold green marks the better value on that metric. Where a source reports ranges that overlap, the difference may not be meaningful; see the benchmark page for ranges.

Quick answers

Is MiniMax M2.1 better than GPT-5.6 Sol?

It depends on the task. Among models available today, on our benchmarks and licensed sources, GPT-5.6 Sol ranks higher for agents and tool use, reasoning and knowledge, writing and sticking to the facts.

Which is cheaper, MiniMax M2.1 or GPT-5.6 Sol?

MiniMax M2.1 costs $0.52 per million tokens (three input to one output), against $8.00 for GPT-5.6 Sol.

Run MiniMax M2.1 and GPT-5.6 Sol on your own prompt

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