Compare / MiniMax M2 vs Mistral Small 3.1 24B

MiniMax M2 vs Mistral Small 3.1 24B

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 16 results on 3 sources that measured both models.

MiniMax M2
MiniMax · profile
Mistral Small 3.1 24B
Mistral · profile
Results compared
16
Shared sources
3

MiniMax M2 or Mistral Small 3.1 24B? The short answer

  • Mistral Small 3.1 24B is cheaper: $0.40 against $0.52 per million tokens, 23% less.
  • MiniMax M2 scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 18.6 against 7.1.
  • On our business benchmarks, MiniMax M2 ranks higher for reasoning and knowledge.
  • On our business benchmarks, Mistral Small 3.1 24B ranks higher for agents and tool use and writing.

At a glance

MiniMax M2Mistral Small 3.1 24B
Price per million tokens$0.30 in · $1.20 out$0.35 in · $0.56 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.52$0.40
Cheapest host, blended$0.45 (Minimax, FP8)–
Intelligence Index18.67.1
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second––
Context window204,800 tokens128,000 tokens
WeightsOpenOpen
Developer based inChinaFrance

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 M2Mistral Small 3.1 24B
Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls 149 of 161 114 of 161
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 107 of 195 172 of 195
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 167 of 187 157 of 187
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 150 of 153 not measured

Every shared result

BenchmarkMetricMiniMax M2Mistral Small 3.1 24B
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedBusiness, management and financeArena rating 1,3481,297
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedCreative writingArena rating 1,2851,270
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedExpert promptsArena rating 1,3501,302
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedInstruction followingArena rating 1,3341,294
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedOverallArena rating 1,3431,303
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedWriting, literature and languageArena rating 1,2981,290
Artificial AnalysisreportedArtificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score 18.67.10
Artificial AnalysisreportedGPQA Diamond% of questions 77.7%45.4%
Artificial AnalysisreportedHumanity's Last Exam% of questions 13.7%4.3%
Artificial AnalysisreportedIFBench% of instructions 72.3%29.9%
Artificial AnalysisreportedLong-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions 64.3%22.3%
Artificial AnalysisreportedTerminal-Bench Hard% of tasks 25.8%7.6%
Artificial AnalysisreportedΤ²-bench telecom% of tasks 86.8%25.1%
UGI LeaderboardreportedRequested-length error% off the requested word count 73.0%11.0%
UGI LeaderboardreportedStyle adherencescore from 0 to 1 0.360.35
UGI LeaderboardreportedWriting scorescore out of 100 17.232.1

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 better than Mistral Small 3.1 24B?

It depends on the task. Among models available today, on our benchmarks and licensed sources, MiniMax M2 ranks higher for reasoning and knowledge; Mistral Small 3.1 24B ranks higher for agents and tool use and writing.

Which is cheaper, MiniMax M2 or Mistral Small 3.1 24B?

Mistral Small 3.1 24B costs $0.40 per million tokens (three input to one output), against $0.52 for MiniMax M2.

Run MiniMax M2 and Mistral Small 3.1 24B on your own prompt

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