ZMIME
Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

MiniMax-M2.5 vs Qwen3.5 Plus vs Qwen3.6 27B

Too close to call on our weighted score (Qwen3.5 Plus 66, Qwen3.6 27B 65, MiniMax-M2.5 61). The right pick depends on what you value most.

  1. MiniMax

    MiniMax-M2.5

    Released Feb 12, 2026

    61/100
    • ECI146.7
    • Price$0.30 / $1.20
    • Context205K
    Full specs Remove MiniMax-M2.5

  2. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.5 Plus

    Released Feb 16, 2026

    66/100
    • ECI146.8
    • Price$0.40 / $2.40
    • Context1M
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.5 Plus

  3. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.6 27B

    Released Apr 22, 2026

    65/100
    • ECI146.5
    • Price$0.60 / $3.60
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.6 27B
01 — Verdict

Too close to call

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 2 points (Qwen3.5 Plus 66/100, Qwen3.6 27B 65/100, MiniMax-M2.5 61/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3.5 Plus for raw capability and MiniMax-M2.5 on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityQwen3.5 PlusCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 Plus 146.8 · MiniMax-M2.5 146.7 · Qwen3.6 27B 146.5
  • Lowest priceMiniMax-M2.5MiniMax-M2.5 $0.525 · Qwen3.5 Plus $0.90 · Qwen3.6 27B $1.35 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextQwen3.5 PlusQwen3.5 Plus 1,000,000 · Qwen3.6 27B 262,144 · MiniMax-M2.5 204,800 tokens
  • Widest inputsQwen3.6 27BMiniMax-M2.5: Text · Qwen3.5 Plus: Text, Images, Video · Qwen3.6 27B: Text, Images, Audio, Video
  • Self-hostingMiniMax-M2.5 and Qwen3.6 27BPublishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightMiniMax-M2.5Qwen3.5 PlusQwen3.6 27B
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%747474
Price25%635244
Inputs & features15%357090
Context window10%326037
Overall100%61/10066/10065/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

MiniMax-M2.5 vs Qwen3.5 Plus vs Qwen3.6 27B specifications side by side
SpecificationMiniMax-M2.5MiniMaxQwen3.5 PlusAlibaba (Qwen)Qwen3.6 27BAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)146.7146.8 (best)146.5
ECI rank#66 of 148#65 of 148 (best)#68 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions—84.9%85.9% (best)
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics——35.1%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics—86.7%91.1% (best)
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions—25.4%—
Price per million tokens
Input$0.30 (best)$0.40$0.60
Output$1.20 (best)$2.40$3.60
Cached input$0.03——
Blended (3:1)$0.525 (best)$0.90$1.35
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial MiniMax (minimax.io) APIOfficial Alibaba APIOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window204,800 tokens1,000,000 tokens (best)262,144 tokens
Max output131,072 tokens (best)65,536 tokens65,536 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesNoYesYes
PDFsNoNoNo
AudioNoNoYes
VideoNoYesYes
ReasoningYesYesYes
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputNoNoYes
Availability
WeightsOpenProprietaryOpen
API model IDMiniMax-M2.5qwen3.5-plusqwen3.6-27b
API providers211027 (best)
ReleasedFeb 12, 2026Feb 16, 2026Apr 22, 2026
Knowledge cutoff—Apr 2025—
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.

  • MiniMax-M2.5$5.40
  • Qwen3.5 Plus$8.80
  • Qwen3.6 27B$13.20
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: MiniMax-M2.5, Qwen3.5 Plus or Qwen3.6 27B?

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 2 points (Qwen3.5 Plus 66/100, Qwen3.6 27B 65/100, MiniMax-M2.5 61/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3.5 Plus for raw capability and MiniMax-M2.5 on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2.5, Qwen3.5 Plus or Qwen3.6 27B?

MiniMax-M2.5 is cheaper at $0.30 input / $1.20 output per million tokens (official MiniMax (minimax.io) API price). Qwen3.5 Plus costs $0.40 input / $2.40 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price); Qwen3.6 27B costs $0.60 input / $3.60 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.525 per million tokens for MiniMax-M2.5 versus $0.90 for Qwen3.5 Plus (1.7× as much) and $1.35 for Qwen3.6 27B (2.6× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen3.5 Plus scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 Plus 146.8 (#65 of 148), MiniMax-M2.5 146.7 (#66 of 148) and Qwen3.6 27B 146.5 (#68 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (144.6–148.1 vs 142.3–147.9), so treat the gap as small.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for MiniMax-M2.5, Qwen3.5 Plus and Qwen3.6 27B yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen3.5 Plus 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?

Qwen3.5 Plus has the largest context window at 1,000,000 tokens, against 262,144 for Qwen3.6 27B and 204,800 for MiniMax-M2.5. Maximum output per response: MiniMax-M2.5 up to 131,072, Qwen3.5 Plus up to 65,536, Qwen3.6 27B up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

MiniMax-M2.5 accepts text; Qwen3.5 Plus accepts text, images and video; Qwen3.6 27B accepts text, images, audio and video. Qwen3.6 27B handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

MiniMax-M2.5 and Qwen3.6 27B publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Qwen3.5 Plus is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Qwen3.6 27B is the newest, released Apr 22, 2026. Qwen3.5 Plus came out Feb 16, 2026; MiniMax-M2.5 came out Feb 12, 2026. Knowledge cutoff: Qwen3.5 Plus Apr 2025.

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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