MiniMax: MiniMax M3 API
MiniMax M3 API combines text, image, and video input with a 1.05M advertised context and unusually large completion capacity. It targets autonomous workflows that may generate extensive plans or artifacts. [1]
MiniMax M3 API — LLM2014 logic 2026-08: MiniMax-M3 (thinking) ranks #24 with a 37.37 median, 43.83 best score, and 982s average time. Configurations are separate. [1][2]
Playground
Try MiniMax M3 in the API Need Playground.
Provider
Current API Need routing and live API pricing. [1]
Pricing
Pricing uses the current live API Need configuration for this model.
Availability
Recent public performance data for this model.
Benchmarks
Editorial benchmark data is shown when this model has a verified match. [2]Intelligence uses the source’s median-score ranking. Efficiency views are APINEED calculations, not official LLM2014 rankings. Test costs and reference prices are converted at ¥7 per US dollar; they are not APINEED selling prices. Missing values are N/A. These results describe the source’s tested configurations, not guaranteed APINEED endpoint performance.
| 1st | GPT-5.5 (xhigh) | 80.23 | 73.89 | 7.9% | 534s | 33,219 | $27.51 | $29.57 |
| 2nd | GPT-5.6 Sol (xhigh) | 78.37 | 69.42 | 11.42% | 381s | 17,769 | $14.71 | $29.57 |
| 3rd | Kimi-K3 (max) | 75.77 | 67.66 | 10.7% | 1144s | 41,432 | $17.40 | $15.00 |
| 4th | Claude Opus 5 (xhigh) | 71.24 | 64.74 | 9.12% | 437s | 26,705 | $18.43 | $24.64 |
| 5th | GLM-5.3 (max) | 74.48 | 63.91 | 14.19% | 1009s | 57,408 | $6.43 | $4.00 |
| 6th | GLM-5.3-Flash (max) | 69.55 | 60.52 | 12.98% | 863s | 38,787 | $0.22 | $0.20 |
| 7th | Qwen3.8-Max (xhigh) | 64.68 | 60.05 | 7.16% | 1297s | 65,135 | $9.38 | $5.14 |
| 8th | DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813(max) | 70.13 | 59.63 | 14.97% | 1601s | 73,350 | $7.92 | $3.86 |
| 9th | DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp (max) | 62.86 | 58.10 | 7.57% | 974s | 79,420 | $2.86 | $1.29 |
| 10th | Gemini 3.7 Flash (high) | 66.62 | 57.56 | 13.6% | 131s | 26,596 | $2.75 | $3.70 |
| 11th | Grok 4.6 (high) | 67.93 | 56.41 | 16.96% | 813s | 33,807 | $5.60 | $5.91 |
| 12th | Gemini 3.1 Pro (high) | 69.35 | 55.84 | 19.48% | 235s | 28,338 | $9.39 | $11.83 |
| 13th | DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (max) | 66.34 | 55.23 | 16.75% | 881s | 74,657 | $2.69 | $1.29 |
| 14th | GLM-5.2 (max) | 66.53 | 54.70 | 17.78% | 891s | 46,273 | $5.18 | $4.00 |
| 15th | Qwen3.8-Flash (xhigh) | 65.44 | 54.49 | 16.73% | 844s | 64,942 | $0.70 | $0.39 |
| 16th | GPT-5.6 Luna (xhigh) | 65.92 | 51.62 | 21.69% | 247s | 37,885 | $1.25 | $1.18 |
| 17th | Qwen3.8-27B (xhigh) | 58.48 | 47.65 | 18.52% | 2318s | 73,987 | $3.55 | $1.71 |
| 18th | Doubao-Seed-2.1-pro (high) | 55.12 | 45.78 | 16.94% | 2026s | 85,238 | $10.23 | $4.29 |
| 19th | Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh) | 57.93 | 45.14 | 22.08% | 359s | 47,209 | $5.54 | $4.19 |
| 20th | Gemini 3.7 Flash (low) | 53.50 | 44.06 | 17.64% | 59s | 10,673 | $1.10 | $3.70 |
| 21st | Claude Sonnet 5 (xhigh) | 47.80 | 39.57 | 17.22% | 545s | 45,066 | $12.44 | $9.86 |
| 22nd | Tencent Hy3 (high) | 57.89 | 39.51 | 31.75% | 1076s | 53,214 | $0.85 | $0.57 |
| 23rd | Qwen3.7-Plus (high) | 51.36 | 38.74 | 24.57% | 1254s | 58,610 | $1.88 | $1.14 |
| 24th | MiniMax-M3 | 43.83 | 37.37 | 14.74% | 982s | 57,486 | $1.93 | $1.20 |
| 25th | Doubao-Seed-2.0-lite 0428 (high) | 34.13 | 26.18 | 23.29% | 669s | 27,845 | $0.40 | $0.51 |
| 26th | Claude Opus 5 | 34.94 | 24.58 | 29.65% | 156s | 10,261 | $7.08 | $24.64 |
| 27th | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite (high) | 29.51 | 20.44 | 30.74% | 192s | 17,842 | $1.23 | $2.46 |
| 28th | Ling-3.0-flash | 28.37 | 17.05 | 39.9% | 735s | 95,538 | N/A | N/A |
| 29th | Gemma 4 31B | 21.36 | 16.09 | 24.67% | 756s | 15,290 | $0.17 | $0.39 |
| 30th | openPangu-2.0-Pro | 20.02 | 15.75 | 21.33% | 645s | 28,215 | $1.64 | $2.07 |
| 31st | Qwen3.7-Plus | 20.84 | 15.63 | 25% | 323s | 8,910 | $0.29 | $1.14 |
| 32nd | GPT-5.5 Instant | 21.73 | 14.09 | 35.16% | 28s | 1,712 | $1.42 | $29.57 |
| 33rd | Mistral Medium 3.5 | 17.25 | 13.87 | 19.59% | 200s | 28,129 | $5.82 | $7.39 |
| 34th | Step-3.7-Flash | 26.18 | 13.74 | 47.52% | 282s | 47,180 | $1.53 | $1.16 |
| 35th | MiMo-V2.5-Pro | 26.31 | 13.00 | 50.59% | 550s | 33,095 | $0.79 | $0.86 |
| 36th | Dots3-Note Preview | 18.63 | 12.95 | 30.49% | 210s | 28,386 | N/A | N/A |
| 37th | ERNIE 5.1 | 16.32 | 11.32 | 30.64% | 468s | 24,522 | $1.77 | $2.57 |
| 38th | Qwen3.8-27B | 16.48 | 10.61 | 35.62% | 192s | 8,914 | $0.43 | $1.71 |
| 39th | openPangu-2.0-Flash | 19.24 | 10.16 | 47.19% | 583s | 29,052 | $0.19 | $0.23 |
| 40th | LongCat-2.0 | 17.61 | 9.74 | 44.69% | 374s | 14,273 | $0.46 | $1.14 |
| 41st | Claude Sonnet 5 | 16.49 | 9.67 | 41.36% | 113s | 6,175 | $1.70 | $9.86 |
| 42nd | GLM-5.2 | 12.42 | 8.05 | 35.19% | 24s | 929 | $0.10 | $4.00 |
| 43rd | DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 | 13.57 | 7.93 | 41.56% | 53s | 4,621 | $0.17 | $1.29 |
| 44th | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | 9.01 | 7.11 | 21.09% | 11s | 707 | $0.03 | $1.48 |
| 45th | Doubao-Seed-2.1-pro | 13.03 | 6.17 | 52.65% | 319s | 6,948 | $0.83 | $4.29 |
| 46th | Mistral Medium 3.5 | 8.45 | 5.93 | 29.82% | 18s | 2,589 | $0.54 | $7.39 |
Quick Start
Call MiniMax M3 with its real backend model ID.
Get an API key
Create an API key in the product app.
export API_NEED_API_KEY=sk-apineed-v1-...Send a request
Call /v1/chat/completions with model minimax-m3.
import OpenAI from "openai";
const client = new OpenAI({
apiKey: process.env.API_NEED_API_KEY,
baseURL: "https://apineed.com/v1"
});
const result = await client.chat.completions.create({
model: "minimax-m3",
messages: [
{ role: "user", content: "Why is the sky blue?" }
]
});
console.log(result.choices[0].message.content);Handle the response
Validate responses and errors in your application.
curl https://apineed.com/v1/chat/completions \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $API_NEED_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "minimax-m3",
"stream": true,
"messages": [
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Hello"
}
]
}'Endpoints
Endpoints currently returned by the live pricing API.
/v1/chat/completions- Authorization
- Bearer $API_NEED_API_KEY
- Content-Type
- application/json
- HTTP-Referer
- optional - your site URL, for rankings
- X-Title
- optional - your site name, for rankings
- Model
- minimax-m3
Parameters
Supported parameters are shown when verified metadata is available. [1]
No verified parameter metadata is currently available.
MiniMax M3 API Q&A
Model-specific answers for teams comparing MiniMax M3 API on capability, benchmark evidence, integration, and cost.
Where does MiniMax M3 API rank in LLM2014?
MiniMax M3 — LLM2014 logic 2026-08: MiniMax-M3 (thinking) ranks #24 with a 37.37 median, 43.83 best score, and 982s average time. Configurations are separate.
Can MiniMax M3 API process video?
Yes. The catalog lists text, image, and video input with text output.
What is the MiniMax M3 APINEED price?
Input costs $0.195, output costs $0.78, and cache reads cost $0.039 per million tokens.
Is MiniMax M3 suitable for real-time chat?
For MiniMax M3 API, run direct latency tests with realistic inputs and output limits. The benchmark’s measured average is not a production response-time guarantee.
Which endpoint serves MiniMax M3 API?
Call MiniMax M3 API through https://apineed.com/v1/chat/completions with minimax-m3 as the model value. Existing OpenAI SDK clients usually need only the APINEED base URL and key.
How do I validate MiniMax M3 API before release?
Evaluate MiniMax M3 API on representative prompts, record quality, latency, and token use, then choose reasoning settings and fallbacks from those results.
How to deploy MiniMax M3
Connect the live model to your application.
Top up
Add usage credit in the product app.
Create a key
Create and securely store an API key.
Configure the endpoint
Send requests to /v1/chat/completions.
Monitor responses
Track status, latency, and errors in your application.
