Llama 4 Maverick Chat vs MiniMax-M2: which model should you choose?
We compared Llama 4 Maverick Chat and MiniMax-M2 on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. MiniMax-M2 has the stronger average benchmark score; MiniMax-M2 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Llama 4 Maverick Chat
Llama 4 Maverick Chat is a multimodal model from Meta AI. It offers a 128,000-token context window, costs $5.09 per million input tokens and $23.20 per million output tokens, and averages 79.7 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $5.09 / 1M
- Output
- $23.20 / 1M
- Context
- 128,000
- Avg score
- 79.7
- Open weights
- Yes
MiniMax-M2
MiniMax-M2 is a multimodal model from MiniMax. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $5.19 per million input tokens and $22.73 per million output tokens, and averages 80.6 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $5.19 / 1M
- Output
- $22.73 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 80.6
- Open weights
- Yes
Specification comparison
| Spec | Llama 4 Maverick Chat | MiniMax-M2 | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $5.09 | $5.19 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $23.20 | $22.73 | B |
| Context window | 128,000 | 200,000 | B |
| Max output | 32,768 | 65,536 | B |
| Average score | 79.7 | 80.6 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1419.9 | 1423.8 | B |
| Open weights | Yes | Yes | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Llama 4 Maverick Chat wins 4, MiniMax-M2 wins 8, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Llama 4 Maverick Chat | MiniMax-M2 | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 80.5 | 81.8 | 1.3 | MiniMax-M2 |
| GPQA Diamond | 73.0 | 75.4 | 2.4 | MiniMax-M2 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 66.6 | 69.9 | 3.3 | MiniMax-M2 |
| HumanEval | 83.2 | 88.0 | 4.8 | MiniMax-M2 |
| MATH-500 | 84.8 | 82.3 | 2.5 | Llama 4 Maverick Chat |
| AIME 2025 | 78.9 | 78.1 | 0.8 | Llama 4 Maverick Chat |
| LiveCodeBench | 76.3 | 73.4 | 2.9 | Llama 4 Maverick Chat |
| IFEval | 87.4 | 86.1 | 1.3 | Llama 4 Maverick Chat |
| TruthfulQA | 81.5 | 83.5 | 2.0 | MiniMax-M2 |
| HellaSwag | 88.8 | 90.4 | 1.6 | MiniMax-M2 |
| MMMU | 75.4 | 78.0 | 2.6 | MiniMax-M2 |
| Arena Elo | 1419.9 | 1423.8 | 3.9 | MiniMax-M2 |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Llama 4 Maverick Chat costs about $9.62 per million tokens and MiniMax-M2 costs about $9.57. MiniMax-M2 is roughly 0% cheaper than Llama 4 Maverick Chat. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
MiniMax-M2 has the larger context window at 200,000 tokens, compared with 128,000 for Llama 4 Maverick Chat. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Llama 4 Maverick Chat wins 4, MiniMax-M2 wins 8, and 0 are tied. On the index average, MiniMax-M2 leads Llama 4 Maverick Chat by 0.9 points (80.6 versus 79.7).
The price picture favours MiniMax-M2. The context picture favours MiniMax-M2. 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 MiniMax-M2 for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.
Choose Llama 4 Maverick Chat if
- You prefer Meta AI's tooling or already use it.
Choose MiniMax-M2 if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 200,000-token context window.
- You need the larger 65,536-token output limit.
FAQ
Is Llama 4 Maverick Chat better than MiniMax-M2?
On the index average, MiniMax-M2 leads Llama 4 Maverick Chat by 0.9 points (80.6 versus 79.7). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Llama 4 Maverick Chat wins 4 benchmarks, MiniMax-M2 wins 8.
Which is cheaper, Llama 4 Maverick Chat or MiniMax-M2?
MiniMax-M2 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $9.57 per million tokens, versus $9.62 for Llama 4 Maverick Chat.
Which has the larger context window?
MiniMax-M2 has the larger context window at 200,000 tokens. Llama 4 Maverick Chat has 128,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Llama 4 Maverick Chat is open weights; MiniMax-M2 is open weights.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with MiniMax-M2 for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.