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Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Gemma 4 31B IT vs MiniMax-M3 vs Qwen3.5 Flash

Qwen3.5 Flash comes out ahead, 75 to 69 and 69 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.

  1. Google

    Gemma 4 31B IT

    Released Apr 2, 2026

    69/100
    • ECI142.8
    • Price$0.14 / $0.40
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Gemma 4 31B IT

  2. MiniMax

    MiniMax-M3

    Released Jun 1, 2026

    69/100
    • ECI147.0
    • Price$0.30 / $1.20
    • Context1.05M
    Full specs Remove MiniMax-M3
  3. Our pick

    Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.5 Flash

    Released Feb 23, 2026

    75/100
    • ECI144.0
    • Price$0.10 / $0.40
    • Context1M
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.5 Flash
01 — Verdict

Qwen3.5 Flash is our pick

Qwen3.5 Flash is the better all-round choice, scoring 75/100 against MiniMax-M3 (69) and Gemma 4 31B IT (69). It leads on price and inputs & features. MiniMax-M3 wins on capability. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityMiniMax-M3Capabilities Index (ECI): MiniMax-M3 147.0 · Qwen3.5 Flash 144.0 · Gemma 4 31B IT 142.8
  • Lowest priceQwen3.5 FlashQwen3.5 Flash $0.175 · Gemma 4 31B IT $0.205 · MiniMax-M3 $0.525 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextMiniMax-M3MiniMax-M3 1,048,576 · Qwen3.5 Flash 1,000,000 · Gemma 4 31B IT 262,144 tokens
  • Widest inputsMiniMax-M3 and Qwen3.5 FlashGemma 4 31B IT: Text, Images · MiniMax-M3: Text, Images, Video · Qwen3.5 Flash: Text, Images, Video
  • Self-hostingGemma 4 31B IT and MiniMax-M3Publishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightGemma 4 31B ITMiniMax-M3Qwen3.5 Flash
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%697471
Price25%836386
Inputs & features15%707080
Context window10%376160
Overall100%69/10069/10075/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.

Gemma 4 31B IT vs MiniMax-M3 vs Qwen3.5 Flash specifications side by side
SpecificationGemma 4 31B ITGoogleMiniMax-M3MiniMaxQwen3.5 FlashAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)142.8147.0 (best)144.0
ECI rank#86 of 148#62 of 148 (best)#82 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions75.8%90.9% (best)82.3%
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics——18.3%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics73.3%71.1%84.4% (best)
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions10.4%—20.3% (best)
Price per million tokens
Input$0.14$0.30$0.10 (best)
Output$0.40 (best)$1.20$0.40 (best)
Cached input—$0.06$0.01 (best)
Blended (3:1)$0.205$0.525$0.175 (best)
Long-context rateSame rateOver 512K: $0.60 / $2.40Same rate
Price sourceMedian of 30 providersOfficial MiniMax (minimax.io) APIOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window262,144 tokens1,048,576 tokens (best)1,000,000 tokens
Max output32,768 tokens512,000 tokens (best)65,536 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesYesYesYes
PDFsNoNoNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoNoYesYes
ReasoningYesYesYes
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputYesNoYes
Availability
WeightsOpenOpenProprietary
API model IDgemma-4-31b-itMiniMax-M3qwen3.5-flash
API providers3842 (best)8
ReleasedApr 2, 2026Jun 1, 2026Feb 23, 2026
Knowledge cutoff———
03 — Cost

What would a month cost?

Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.

  • Gemma 4 31B IT$2.20
  • MiniMax-M3$5.40
  • Qwen3.5 Flash$1.80
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Gemma 4 31B IT, MiniMax-M3 or Qwen3.5 Flash?

Qwen3.5 Flash is the better all-round choice, scoring 75/100 against MiniMax-M3 (69) and Gemma 4 31B IT (69). It leads on price and inputs & features. MiniMax-M3 wins on capability. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Gemma 4 31B IT, MiniMax-M3 or Qwen3.5 Flash?

Qwen3.5 Flash is cheaper at $0.10 input / $0.40 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). Gemma 4 31B IT costs $0.14 input / $0.40 output per million tokens (median across 30 API providers); MiniMax-M3 costs $0.30 input / $1.20 output per million tokens (official MiniMax (minimax.io) API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.175 per million tokens for Qwen3.5 Flash versus $0.205 for Gemma 4 31B IT (1.2× as much) and $0.525 for MiniMax-M3 (3× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

MiniMax-M3 scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): MiniMax-M3 147.0 (#62 of 148), Qwen3.5 Flash 144.0 (#82 of 148) and Gemma 4 31B IT 142.8 (#86 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (142.7–149.8 vs 141.6–145.5), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — MiniMax-M3 90.9%, Qwen3.5 Flash 82.3%, Gemma 4 31B IT 75.8%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3.5 Flash 84.4%, Gemma 4 31B IT 73.3%, MiniMax-M3 71.1%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Gemma 4 31B IT, MiniMax-M3 and Qwen3.5 Flash yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, MiniMax-M3 leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.

Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax-M3 has the largest context window at 1,048,576 tokens, against 1,000,000 for Qwen3.5 Flash and 262,144 for Gemma 4 31B IT. Maximum output per response: Gemma 4 31B IT up to 32,768, MiniMax-M3 up to 512,000, Qwen3.5 Flash up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Gemma 4 31B IT accepts text and images; MiniMax-M3 accepts text, images and video; Qwen3.5 Flash accepts text, images and video. MiniMax-M3 handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Gemma 4 31B IT and MiniMax-M3 publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Qwen3.5 Flash is proprietary.

Which is newer?

MiniMax-M3 is the newest, released Jun 1, 2026. Gemma 4 31B IT came out Apr 2, 2026; Qwen3.5 Flash came out Feb 23, 2026.

How do you decide the winner?

Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Oct 4, 2026.

05 — Keep comparing

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