MiniMax: MiniMax M3.1 Flash (free) vs Qwen: Qwen3.8 Max Prime
Side-by-side comparison of specs, pricing, benchmark scores, and task rankings. Updated 2026-10-20.
| MiniMax: MiniMax M3.1 Flash (free) | Qwen: Qwen3.8 Max Prime | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | minimax | qwen |
| Quality Score | 100 | 100 |
| Input Price | Free | $4.00/M |
| Output Price | Free | $12.00/M |
| Context Window | 1,000,000 | 1,000,000 |
| Max Output | 524,288 | 131,072 |
| Tool Calling | ✓ | ✓ |
| Structured Output | ✓ | ✓ |
| Reasoning Mode | ✓ | ✓ |
| Vision | ✓ | ✓ |
| Audio | - | - |
The verdict
For a sample job of 1 million input tokens and 250,000 output tokens, MiniMax M3.1 Flash (free) costs $0 and Qwen3.8 Max Prime costs $7.00, so MiniMax M3.1 Flash (free) is free for the same work.
Both read up to 1,000,000 tokens at once, roughly 1,500 pages of text.
Across the 10 tasks where they differ, MiniMax M3.1 Flash (free) scores higher on 10 (SQL Generation, Code Completion, Code Documentation and others).
MiniMax M3.1 Flash (free) was released in October 2026 and Qwen3.8 Max Prime in September 2026.
Pick MiniMax M3.1 Flash (free) if you need lower cost or the stronger all-round task scores.
Costs use current list prices per million tokens; page counts assume about 0.75 words per token and 500 words per page.
Who wins by task?
| Task | MiniMax: MiniMax M3.1 Flash (free) | Qwen: Qwen3.8 Max Prime |
|---|---|---|
| SQL Generation | 134 | 132 |
| Code Completion | 132 | 116 |
| Code Documentation | 132 | 128 |
| Regex Writing | 120 | 116 |
| CSV / Spreadsheet Cleanup | 134 | 132 |
| JSON Extraction | 132 | 120 |
| Bulk Data Labeling | 130 | 117 |
| Long-Document Summarization | 138 | 136 |
| Short-Form Summarization | 124 | 112 |
| Blog Post Writing | 122 | 120 |
Scores reflect capability match + benchmark data + pricing for each task. Methodology →