ERNIE 4.5 Pro vs MiniMax-M2 Chat: which model should you choose?
We compared ERNIE 4.5 Pro and MiniMax-M2 Chat on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. ERNIE 4.5 Pro has the stronger average benchmark score; MiniMax-M2 Chat is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
ERNIE 4.5 Pro
ERNIE 4.5 Pro is a multimodal model from Baidu. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $13.89 per million input tokens and $65.19 per million output tokens, and averages 80.5 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $13.89 / 1M
- Output
- $65.19 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 80.5
- 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 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro | MiniMax-M2 Chat | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $13.89 | $5.02 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $65.19 | $18.95 | B |
| Context window | 1,000,000 | 200,000 | A |
| Max output | 32,768 | 8,192 | A |
| Average score | 80.5 | 80.2 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1414.3 | 1443.0 | B |
| Open weights | No | Yes | B |
Benchmark comparison
ERNIE 4.5 Pro 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 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro | MiniMax-M2 Chat | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 80.3 | 84.3 | 4.0 | MiniMax-M2 Chat |
| GPQA Diamond | 74.7 | 77.8 | 3.1 | MiniMax-M2 Chat |
| SWE-bench Verified | 66.5 | 66.4 | 0.1 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| HumanEval | 86.9 | 84.2 | 2.7 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| MATH-500 | 87.2 | 86.0 | 1.2 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| AIME 2025 | 76.3 | 78.3 | 2.0 | MiniMax-M2 Chat |
| LiveCodeBench | 76.4 | 70.4 | 6.0 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| IFEval | 86.0 | 88.0 | 2.0 | MiniMax-M2 Chat |
| TruthfulQA | 83.1 | 80.3 | 2.8 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| HellaSwag | 90.2 | 87.8 | 2.4 | ERNIE 4.5 Pro |
| MMMU | 78.4 | 79.2 | 0.8 | MiniMax-M2 Chat |
| Arena Elo | 1414.3 | 1443.0 | 28.7 | MiniMax-M2 Chat |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, ERNIE 4.5 Pro costs about $26.71 per million tokens and MiniMax-M2 Chat costs about $8.50. MiniMax-M2 Chat is roughly 68% cheaper than ERNIE 4.5 Pro. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
ERNIE 4.5 Pro has the larger context window at 1,000,000 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, ERNIE 4.5 Pro wins 6, MiniMax-M2 Chat wins 6, and 0 are tied. On the index average, ERNIE 4.5 Pro leads MiniMax-M2 Chat by 0.3 points (80.5 versus 80.2).
The price picture favours MiniMax-M2 Chat. The context picture favours ERNIE 4.5 Pro. 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 ERNIE 4.5 Pro 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 ERNIE 4.5 Pro if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- You need the larger 1,000,000-token context window.
- You need the larger 32,768-token output limit.
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 ERNIE 4.5 Pro better than MiniMax-M2 Chat?
On the index average, ERNIE 4.5 Pro leads MiniMax-M2 Chat by 0.3 points (80.5 versus 80.2). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. ERNIE 4.5 Pro wins 6 benchmarks, MiniMax-M2 Chat wins 6.
Which is cheaper, ERNIE 4.5 Pro or MiniMax-M2 Chat?
MiniMax-M2 Chat is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $8.50 per million tokens, versus $26.71 for ERNIE 4.5 Pro.
Which has the larger context window?
ERNIE 4.5 Pro has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens. MiniMax-M2 Chat has 200,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
ERNIE 4.5 Pro is proprietary; MiniMax-M2 Chat is open weights.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with ERNIE 4.5 Pro 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.