MiniMax is a AI assistants tool: Low-cost agentic coding models, video and speech via API and M Plan.

How much does MiniMax cost?

MiniMax uses a Freemium model; paid plans start at $22 per month.

What are the best alternatives to MiniMax?

Community-listed alternatives to MiniMax include Cursor, Exa, RunInfra, Inception Mercury.

What does MiniMax integrate with?

MiniMax integrates with Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, Anthropic SDK, OpenAI SDK and more.

Which platforms does MiniMax support?

MiniMax is available on web, macos, windows, linux, ios, android.

MiniMax

Low-cost agentic coding models, video and speech via API and M Plan

Freemium · $22AI assistants Developer tools

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MiniMax is a aI assistants tool for Developers and Small businesses, offered as freemium ($22/mo). Founded in 2022. Popular alternatives include Cursor, Exa, RunInfra.

About MiniMax

MiniMax is an AI foundation model company founded, by its own account, in early 2022. It builds its own models for text, video, speech, image and music and sells them through an Open API Platform, the MiniMax Code agent app and an M Plan subscription. For developers the core job is cheap, fast language models for coding and agent work, served behind endpoints that copy the Anthropic and OpenAI formats.

The current text models are MiniMax-M3.1-Flash and MiniMax-M3, both with a 1M-token context window and multimodal input; M3.1 Flash adds an effort setting from low to max. Next to them sit H3 video, speech-2.8 TTS with voice cloning, speech recognition and image-01. Pay-as-you-go API pricing is per million tokens, with a Priority tier at 1.5x. M Plan, aimed at individual developers, costs $22, $55 or $132 a month for Go, Explore and Build, with two months free on yearly billing, and gives a key that works in Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and OpenCode.

It fits developers and teams that run long agent loops and want token costs far below premium models. DeepSeek is the closest low-cost rival, while Claude costs much more per token but brings richer apps and enterprise controls. M Plan is not meant for production and has 5-hour and weekly limits, M2.5 and M2.7 retire on November 18, 2026, and benchmark figures come from MiniMax itself.

MiniMax released M3.1 Flash on October 19, 2026 and launched it on Product Hunt on October 26, 2026. It claims about 3x faster inference, 70% lower agentic task cost and 73.7% on DeepSWE v1.1. Tip: test with a pay-as-you-go key before subscribing.

Key features of MiniMax

MiniMax-M3.1-Flash at $0.15 input and $0.60 output per 1M tokens
1M-token context window on M3.1 Flash and M3
Effort setting on M3.1 Flash, from low to max, to trade thinking depth for cost
Anthropic- and OpenAI-compatible endpoints, plus the Responses API
M Plan key usable in Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and OpenCode
MiniMax Code agent on web, desktop, CLI, iOS and Android
H3 video, speech-2.8 TTS, voice cloning, ASR and image models
Server-side web_search tool and image understanding via MCP

Pros and cons

Pros

Very low token prices for agentic coding workloads
Drop-in base URL for tools built on the Anthropic SDK
One platform covers text, video, speech and image generation
Flat subscription option with yearly billing at 10 months' price
Large 1M-token context for big codebases and long sessions

Cons

M Plan is for individual interactive use, not production traffic
Usage resets in 5-hour and weekly windows that can cut sessions short
M2.5 and M2.7 retire on November 18, 2026, forcing migrations
M3.1 Flash weights are promised but not yet released
Benchmark claims are vendor-reported, not independently verified

MiniMax pricing

MiniMax uses a freemium model.

Plan	Price	Includes
MiniMax Code Free	$0	Limited M3.1 Flash, image and speech use in MiniMax Code
M3.1 Flash API	$0.15 / 1M input tokens	Output $0.60/1M, cached input $0.015/1M; pay-as-you-go
M3 API	$0.30 / 1M input tokens	Up to 512k input, after permanent 50% off; output $1.20/1M
M Plan Go	$22 / mo	M3.1 Flash, image and speech models; $220 billed yearly
M Plan Explore	$55 / mo	3x Go usage, adds H3 video; $550 billed yearly
M Plan Build	$132 / mo	7.5x Go usage, peak-hour priority; $1,320 billed yearly

Source: platform.minimax.io · checked on Oct 27, 2026

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How MiniMax compares in AI assistants

Rank by votes: #1 / 32
Starting price: $22
Free alternatives: 1

MiniMax ranks #1 of 32 ai assistants tools by community votes and is priced above most tools in the category.

Common use cases

1Running Claude Code or Cursor on a cheaper model through an M Plan key
2Powering high-volume coding or browser agents at low per-token cost
3Processing long documents or repositories in one 1M-token context
4Adding text-to-speech and voice cloning to an app via API
5Generating short product or social videos with the H3 models

Best for

Developers and cost-sensitive teams that run agentic coding and automation workloads and want low token prices behind Anthropic- or OpenAI-style APIs.

Not ideal for

Teams that need top-tier frontier models with mature enterprise admin and compliance controls (Claude, Gemini).

Integrations

Claude Code
Codex
Cursor
OpenCode
Anthropic SDK
OpenAI SDK
AI SDK
SGLang

Our take

MiniMax is a strong budget choice for agent and coding workloads, and M3.1 Flash pricing undercuts most rivals. Use pay-as-you-go keys for production, treat M Plan as a personal coding subscription, and run your own evaluations before trusting the vendor benchmarks.

FAQ

What is MiniMax?: MiniMax is a AI assistants tool: Low-cost agentic coding models, video and speech via API and M Plan.
How much does MiniMax cost?: MiniMax uses a Freemium model; paid plans start at $22 per month.
What are the best alternatives to MiniMax?: Community-listed alternatives to MiniMax include Cursor, Exa, RunInfra, Inception Mercury.
What does MiniMax integrate with?: MiniMax integrates with Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, Anthropic SDK, OpenAI SDK and more.
Which platforms does MiniMax support?: MiniMax is available on web, macos, windows, linux, ios, android.
Who is MiniMax for?: Developers and cost-sensitive teams that run agentic coding and automation workloads and want low token prices behind Anthropic- or OpenAI-style APIs.

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