MiniMax M3 API Pricing
MiniMax · context window 1M · prices updated 2026-09-15
Where MiniMax M3 sits on price
At $1.20 per million output tokens, MiniMax M3 is a mid tier model — 1.7× cheaper than the median output price of $2.08, which puts it cheaper than 65% and pricier than 35% of the models we track. It sits 4th cheapest of the 9 MiniMax models we track. Output costs 4.0× input, the usual spread — trim both, starting with the answer length.
Cached input is 80% cheaper. On an input-heavy workload you need roughly a 31% cache-hit rate to take 25% off the input line — reachable for chatbots and agents that resend the same system prompt and history.
What real workloads cost on MiniMax M3
These three workloads are the ones teams actually run on a mid-priced model — a $1.20/1M model is not bought for the same job as one ten times the price.
| Workload | Per request | Per month |
|---|---|---|
| Support chatbot — 500 conversations/day (5K in / 1.4K out) Conversation history re-sent each turn — the classic prompt-caching win. | $0.0032 | $47.70 |
| Document pipeline — 10K docs/day (3K in / 500 out) Batch-friendly: no user waiting, so a ~50% batch discount usually applies. | $0.0015 | $450 |
| Long-context analysis — 200 runs/day (250K in / 4K out) Only possible on large-context models; input cost is nearly the whole bill. | $0.0798 | $479 |
Model your exact traffic in the API cost calculator — it preloads MiniMax M3 with caching and batch options.
MiniMax M3 price history
MiniMax M3's price has not moved since we began tracking it on Aug 2, 2026 — 44 days of stability in a market where 78 of the 334 models we track have repriced over the same period, including 4 of MiniMax's own 9 models.
Change-points from our daily price snapshots (tracking since Aug 2, 2026; intraday moves between snapshots are not captured).
MiniMax M3 vs Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking
The closest-priced alternative from another vendor is Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking (Alibaba (Qwen)) — priced within a rounding error on output, with $0.15 less per million input tokens. When two models land this close on price, the decision is quality on your own workload, not the price sheet: run 50 real requests through both and compare.
See Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking pricing →Cheaper alternatives
More MiniMax models
Frequently asked questions
› How much does the MiniMax M3 API cost?
MiniMax M3 costs $0.3 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens, with cached input at $0.06 per million (80% cheaper). That works out to roughly 833,333 output tokens per dollar.
› What does the support chatbot workload cost on MiniMax M3?
Support chatbot — 500 conversations/day (5K in / 1.4K out) costs about $0.0032 per request and $47.70 per month on MiniMax M3. Conversation history re-sent each turn — the classic prompt-caching win.
› What does it cost to fill MiniMax M3's 1M context window?
Sending 1M of input in a single request costs $0.3146 at $0.3 per million tokens — before any output. With prompt caching that same fill drops to about $0.0629 on repeat requests. This is why large context windows are cheap to advertise and expensive to actually use.
› Is MiniMax M3 worth the price?
MiniMax M3 sits in the middle of the market (4 of 9 by price within MiniMax). The honest test is a routing experiment: send the same 200 real requests to this model and to a tier below, and compare failure rate against the price gap — most teams find a majority of traffic never needed the pricier model.