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Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Qwen3.5 Flash vs MiniMax-M2.5-highspeed vs Gemma 4 31B IT

Qwen3.5 Flash comes out ahead, 79 to 70 and 41 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.

  1. Our pick

    Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.5 Flash

    Released Feb 23, 2026

    79/100
    • ECI144.0
    • Price$0.10 / $0.40
    • Context1M
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.5 Flash

  2. MiniMax

    MiniMax-M2.5-highspeed

    Released Feb 13, 2026

    41/100
    • ECI—
    • Price$0.60 / $2.40
    • Context205K
    Full specs Remove MiniMax-M2.5-highspeed

  3. Google

    Gemma 4 31B IT

    Released Apr 2, 2026

    70/100
    • ECI142.8
    • Price$0.14 / $0.40
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Gemma 4 31B IT
01 — Verdict

Qwen3.5 Flash is our pick

Qwen3.5 Flash is the better all-round choice, scoring 79/100 against Gemma 4 31B IT (70) and MiniMax-M2.5-highspeed (41). It leads on price, inputs & features and context window. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.

  • CapabilityNot enough dataNo independent benchmark covers every model here yet
  • Lowest priceQwen3.5 FlashQwen3.5 Flash $0.175 · Gemma 4 31B IT $0.205 · MiniMax-M2.5-highspeed $1.05 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextQwen3.5 FlashQwen3.5 Flash 1,000,000 · Gemma 4 31B IT 262,144 · MiniMax-M2.5-highspeed 204,800 tokens
  • Widest inputsQwen3.5 FlashQwen3.5 Flash: Text, Images, Video · MiniMax-M2.5-highspeed: Text · Gemma 4 31B IT: Text, Images
  • Self-hostingMiniMax-M2.5-highspeed and Gemma 4 31B ITPublishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightQwen3.5 FlashMiniMax-M2.5-highspeedGemma 4 31B IT
Price50%864983
Inputs & features30%803570
Context window20%603237
Overall100%79/10041/10070/100

Left out because at least one model lacks the data: capability. The remaining weights were rescaled.

02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

Qwen3.5 Flash vs MiniMax-M2.5-highspeed vs Gemma 4 31B IT specifications side by side
SpecificationQwen3.5 FlashAlibaba (Qwen)MiniMax-M2.5-highspeedMiniMaxGemma 4 31B ITGoogle
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)144.0 (best)—142.8
ECI rank#82 of 148 (best)—#86 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions82.3% (best)—75.8%
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics18.3%——
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics84.4% (best)—73.3%
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions20.3% (best)—10.4%
Price per million tokens
Input$0.10 (best)$0.60$0.14
Output$0.40 (best)$2.40$0.40 (best)
Cached input$0.01 (best)$0.06—
Blended (3:1)$0.175 (best)$1.05$0.205
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Alibaba APIOfficial MiniMax (minimax.io) APIMedian of 30 providers
Limits
Context window1,000,000 tokens (best)204,800 tokens262,144 tokens
Max output65,536 tokens131,072 tokens (best)32,768 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesYesNoYes
PDFsNoNoNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoYesNoNo
ReasoningYesYesYes
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputYesNoYes
Availability
WeightsProprietaryOpenOpen
API model IDqwen3.5-flashMiniMax-M2.5-highspeedgemma-4-31b-it
API providers8738 (best)
ReleasedFeb 23, 2026Feb 13, 2026Apr 2, 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.

  • Qwen3.5 Flash$1.80
  • MiniMax-M2.5-highspeed$10.80
  • Gemma 4 31B IT$2.20
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Qwen3.5 Flash, MiniMax-M2.5-highspeed or Gemma 4 31B IT?

Qwen3.5 Flash is the better all-round choice, scoring 79/100 against Gemma 4 31B IT (70) and MiniMax-M2.5-highspeed (41). It leads on price, inputs & features and context window. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5 Flash, MiniMax-M2.5-highspeed or Gemma 4 31B IT?

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-M2.5-highspeed costs $0.60 input / $2.40 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 $1.05 for MiniMax-M2.5-highspeed (6× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

There is no independent benchmark that covers all three models yet. Qwen3.5 Flash has an ECI of 144.0, MiniMax-M2.5-highspeed has not been scored yet and Gemma 4 31B IT has an ECI of 142.8.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Qwen3.5 Flash, MiniMax-M2.5-highspeed and Gemma 4 31B IT yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. Test both on a sample of your own tasks. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.5 Flash has the largest context window at 1,000,000 tokens, against 262,144 for Gemma 4 31B IT and 204,800 for MiniMax-M2.5-highspeed. Maximum output per response: Qwen3.5 Flash up to 65,536, MiniMax-M2.5-highspeed up to 131,072, Gemma 4 31B IT up to 32,768 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Qwen3.5 Flash accepts text, images and video; MiniMax-M2.5-highspeed accepts text; Gemma 4 31B IT accepts text and images. Qwen3.5 Flash handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

MiniMax-M2.5-highspeed and Gemma 4 31B IT publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Qwen3.5 Flash is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Gemma 4 31B IT is the newest, released Apr 2, 2026. Qwen3.5 Flash came out Feb 23, 2026; MiniMax-M2.5-highspeed came out Feb 13, 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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