ZMIME
Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Qwen3.5 Plus vs Mistral Small 3.1 24B vs MiniMax-M2.5

Qwen3.5 Plus comes out ahead, 66 to 61 and 55 on our weighted score, though Mistral Small 3.1 24B is 3.2× cheaper per token.

  1. Our pick

    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

  2. Mistral AI

    Mistral Small 3.1 24B

    Released Mar 17, 2025

    55/100
    • ECI127.5
    • Price$0.229 / $0.436
    • Context128K
    Full specs Remove Mistral Small 3.1 24B

  3. MiniMax

    MiniMax-M2.5

    Released Feb 12, 2026

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

Qwen3.5 Plus is our pick

Qwen3.5 Plus is the better all-round choice, scoring 66/100 against MiniMax-M2.5 (61) and Mistral Small 3.1 24B (55). It leads on inputs & features and context window. Mistral Small 3.1 24B wins 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 · Mistral Small 3.1 24B 127.5
  • Lowest priceMistral Small 3.1 24BMistral Small 3.1 24B $0.281 · MiniMax-M2.5 $0.525 · Qwen3.5 Plus $0.90 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextQwen3.5 PlusQwen3.5 Plus 1,000,000 · MiniMax-M2.5 204,800 · Mistral Small 3.1 24B 128,000 tokens
  • Widest inputsQwen3.5 PlusQwen3.5 Plus: Text, Images, Video · Mistral Small 3.1 24B: Text, Images · MiniMax-M2.5: Text
  • Self-hostingMistral Small 3.1 24B and MiniMax-M2.5Publishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightQwen3.5 PlusMistral Small 3.1 24BMiniMax-M2.5
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%745074
Price25%527663
Inputs & features15%706035
Context window10%602432
Overall100%66/10055/10061/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

Qwen3.5 Plus vs Mistral Small 3.1 24B vs MiniMax-M2.5 specifications side by side
SpecificationQwen3.5 PlusAlibaba (Qwen)Mistral Small 3.1 24BMistral AIMiniMax-M2.5MiniMax
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)146.8 (best)127.5146.7
ECI rank#65 of 148 (best)#132 of 148#66 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions84.9% (best)47.5%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics86.7% (best)5.8%—
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions25.4%——
Price per million tokens
Input$0.40$0.229 (best)$0.30
Output$2.40$0.436 (best)$1.20
Cached input——$0.03
Blended (3:1)$0.90$0.281 (best)$0.525
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Alibaba APIMedian of 2 providersOfficial MiniMax (minimax.io) API
Limits
Context window1,000,000 tokens (best)128,000 tokens204,800 tokens
Max output65,536 tokens16,384 tokens131,072 tokens (best)
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesYesYesNo
PDFsNoNoNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoYesNoNo
ReasoningYesNoYes
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputNoYesNo
Availability
WeightsProprietaryOpenOpen
API model IDqwen3.5-plus—MiniMax-M2.5
API providers10221 (best)
ReleasedFeb 16, 2026Mar 17, 2025Feb 12, 2026
Knowledge cutoffApr 2025Jun 2024—
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 Plus$8.80
  • Mistral Small 3.1 24B$3.16
  • MiniMax-M2.5$5.40
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Qwen3.5 Plus, Mistral Small 3.1 24B or MiniMax-M2.5?

Qwen3.5 Plus is the better all-round choice, scoring 66/100 against MiniMax-M2.5 (61) and Mistral Small 3.1 24B (55). It leads on inputs & features and context window. Mistral Small 3.1 24B wins on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5 Plus, Mistral Small 3.1 24B or MiniMax-M2.5?

Mistral Small 3.1 24B is cheaper at $0.229 input / $0.436 output per million tokens (median across 2 API providers). MiniMax-M2.5 costs $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). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.281 per million tokens for Mistral Small 3.1 24B versus $0.525 for MiniMax-M2.5 (1.9× as much) and $0.90 for Qwen3.5 Plus (3.2× 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 Mistral Small 3.1 24B 127.5 (#132 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 Qwen3.5 Plus, Mistral Small 3.1 24B and MiniMax-M2.5 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 204,800 for MiniMax-M2.5 and 128,000 for Mistral Small 3.1 24B. Maximum output per response: Qwen3.5 Plus up to 65,536, Mistral Small 3.1 24B up to 16,384, MiniMax-M2.5 up to 131,072 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Qwen3.5 Plus accepts text, images and video; Mistral Small 3.1 24B accepts text and images; MiniMax-M2.5 accepts text. Qwen3.5 Plus handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Mistral Small 3.1 24B and MiniMax-M2.5 publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Qwen3.5 Plus is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Qwen3.5 Plus is the newest, released Feb 16, 2026. MiniMax-M2.5 came out Feb 12, 2026; Mistral Small 3.1 24B came out Mar 17, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Qwen3.5 Plus Apr 2025, Mistral Small 3.1 24B Jun 2024.

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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