MiniMax-M2 Chat vs Sonar Pro Reasoning: which model should you choose?
We compared MiniMax-M2 Chat and Sonar Pro Reasoning on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Sonar Pro Reasoning has the stronger average benchmark score; MiniMax-M2 Chat is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
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
Sonar Pro Reasoning
Sonar Pro Reasoning is a multimodal model from Perplexity. It offers a 128,000-token context window, costs $13.94 per million input tokens and $72.76 per million output tokens, and averages 80.5 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $13.94 / 1M
- Output
- $72.76 / 1M
- Context
- 128,000
- Avg score
- 80.5
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | MiniMax-M2 Chat | Sonar Pro Reasoning | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $5.02 | $13.94 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $18.95 | $72.76 | A |
| Context window | 200,000 | 128,000 | A |
| Max output | 8,192 | 32,768 | B |
| Average score | 80.2 | 80.5 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1443.0 | 1439.7 | A |
| Open weights | Yes | No | A |
Benchmark comparison
MiniMax-M2 Chat wins 8, Sonar Pro Reasoning wins 4, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M2 Chat | Sonar Pro Reasoning | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 84.3 | 82.6 | 1.7 | MiniMax-M2 Chat |
| GPQA Diamond | 77.8 | 76.2 | 1.6 | MiniMax-M2 Chat |
| SWE-bench Verified | 66.4 | 71.7 | 5.3 | Sonar Pro Reasoning |
| HumanEval | 84.2 | 82.7 | 1.5 | MiniMax-M2 Chat |
| MATH-500 | 86.0 | 85.1 | 0.9 | MiniMax-M2 Chat |
| AIME 2025 | 78.3 | 73.7 | 4.6 | MiniMax-M2 Chat |
| LiveCodeBench | 70.4 | 75.6 | 5.2 | Sonar Pro Reasoning |
| IFEval | 88.0 | 87.1 | 0.9 | MiniMax-M2 Chat |
| TruthfulQA | 80.3 | 84.4 | 4.1 | Sonar Pro Reasoning |
| HellaSwag | 87.8 | 89.9 | 2.1 | Sonar Pro Reasoning |
| MMMU | 79.2 | 76.1 | 3.1 | MiniMax-M2 Chat |
| Arena Elo | 1443.0 | 1439.7 | 3.3 | MiniMax-M2 Chat |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, MiniMax-M2 Chat costs about $8.50 per million tokens and Sonar Pro Reasoning costs about $28.65. MiniMax-M2 Chat is roughly 70% cheaper than Sonar Pro Reasoning. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
MiniMax-M2 Chat has the larger context window at 200,000 tokens, compared with 128,000 for Sonar Pro Reasoning. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, MiniMax-M2 Chat wins 8, Sonar Pro Reasoning wins 4, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Sonar Pro Reasoning leads MiniMax-M2 Chat by 0.3 points (80.5 versus 80.2).
The price picture favours MiniMax-M2 Chat. The context picture favours MiniMax-M2 Chat. 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 Sonar Pro Reasoning 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 MiniMax-M2 Chat if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 200,000-token context window.
- You need open weights for self-hosting or fine-tuning.
Choose Sonar Pro Reasoning if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- You need the larger 32,768-token output limit.
- The workload needs multi-step reasoning.
FAQ
Is MiniMax-M2 Chat better than Sonar Pro Reasoning?
On the index average, Sonar Pro Reasoning leads MiniMax-M2 Chat by 0.3 points (80.5 versus 80.2). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. MiniMax-M2 Chat wins 8 benchmarks, Sonar Pro Reasoning wins 4.
Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2 Chat or Sonar Pro Reasoning?
MiniMax-M2 Chat is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $8.50 per million tokens, versus $28.65 for Sonar Pro Reasoning.
Which has the larger context window?
MiniMax-M2 Chat has the larger context window at 200,000 tokens. Sonar Pro Reasoning has 128,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
MiniMax-M2 Chat is open weights; Sonar Pro Reasoning is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Sonar Pro Reasoning 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.