Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision vs MiniMax-M2 Chat: which model should you choose?
We compared Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision and MiniMax-M2 Chat on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision has the stronger average benchmark score; MiniMax-M2 Chat is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision
Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision is a multimodal model from Anthropic. It offers a 400,000-token context window, costs $13.96 per million input tokens and $56.28 per million output tokens, and averages 81.0 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $13.96 / 1M
- Output
- $56.28 / 1M
- Context
- 400,000
- Avg score
- 81.0
- Open weights
- No
MiniMax-M2 Chat
MiniMax-M2 Chat is a multimodal model from MiniMax. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $5.02 per million input tokens and $18.95 per million output tokens, and averages 80.2 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $5.02 / 1M
- Output
- $18.95 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 80.2
- Open weights
- Yes
Specification comparison
| Spec | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision | MiniMax-M2 Chat | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $13.96 | $5.02 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $56.28 | $18.95 | B |
| Context window | 400,000 | 200,000 | A |
| Max output | 8,192 | 8,192 | Tie |
| Average score | 81.0 | 80.2 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1429.6 | 1443.0 | B |
| Open weights | No | Yes | B |
Benchmark comparison
Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision wins 6, MiniMax-M2 Chat wins 6, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision | MiniMax-M2 Chat | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 82.5 | 84.3 | 1.8 | MiniMax-M2 Chat |
| GPQA Diamond | 77.3 | 77.8 | 0.5 | MiniMax-M2 Chat |
| SWE-bench Verified | 72.2 | 66.4 | 5.8 | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision |
| HumanEval | 85.4 | 84.2 | 1.2 | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision |
| MATH-500 | 84.8 | 86.0 | 1.2 | MiniMax-M2 Chat |
| AIME 2025 | 80.9 | 78.3 | 2.6 | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision |
| LiveCodeBench | 75.7 | 70.4 | 5.3 | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision |
| IFEval | 87.9 | 88.0 | 0.1 | MiniMax-M2 Chat |
| TruthfulQA | 81.6 | 80.3 | 1.3 | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision |
| HellaSwag | 89.4 | 87.8 | 1.6 | Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision |
| MMMU | 73.8 | 79.2 | 5.4 | MiniMax-M2 Chat |
| Arena Elo | 1429.6 | 1443.0 | 13.4 | MiniMax-M2 Chat |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision costs about $24.54 per million tokens and MiniMax-M2 Chat costs about $8.50. MiniMax-M2 Chat is roughly 65% cheaper than Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens, compared with 200,000 for MiniMax-M2 Chat. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision wins 6, MiniMax-M2 Chat wins 6, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision leads MiniMax-M2 Chat by 0.8 points (81.0 versus 80.2).
The price picture favours MiniMax-M2 Chat. The context picture favours Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision. Those two dimensions often matter more than a few benchmark points once a model is good enough for the task.
If you need a single default, start with Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision for quality-sensitive work and MiniMax-M2 Chat for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- You need the larger 400,000-token context window.
Choose MiniMax-M2 Chat if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need open weights for self-hosting or fine-tuning.
FAQ
Is Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision better than MiniMax-M2 Chat?
On the index average, Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision leads MiniMax-M2 Chat by 0.8 points (81.0 versus 80.2). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision wins 6 benchmarks, MiniMax-M2 Chat wins 6.
Which is cheaper, Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision or MiniMax-M2 Chat?
MiniMax-M2 Chat is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $8.50 per million tokens, versus $24.54 for Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision.
Which has the larger context window?
Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens. MiniMax-M2 Chat has 200,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision is proprietary; MiniMax-M2 Chat is open weights.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Claude 3.7 Sonnet Vision for quality-sensitive work and MiniMax-M2 Chat for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.