ZMIME
Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

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

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

  1. 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. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.6 Plus

    Released Apr 2, 2026

    66/100
    • ECI147.6
    • Price$0.50 / $3.00
    • Context1M
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.6 Plus

  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

Too close to call

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

  • CapabilityQwen3.6 PlusCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.6 Plus 147.6 · Qwen3.5 Plus 146.8 · MiniMax-M2.5 146.7
  • Lowest priceMiniMax-M2.5MiniMax-M2.5 $0.525 · Qwen3.5 Plus $0.90 · Qwen3.6 Plus $1.13 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextQwen3.5 Plus and Qwen3.6 PlusQwen3.5 Plus 1,000,000 · Qwen3.6 Plus 1,000,000 · MiniMax-M2.5 204,800 tokens
  • Widest inputsQwen3.5 Plus and Qwen3.6 PlusQwen3.5 Plus: Text, Images, Video · Qwen3.6 Plus: Text, Images, Video · MiniMax-M2.5: Text
  • Self-hostingMiniMax-M2.5Publishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightQwen3.5 PlusQwen3.6 PlusMiniMax-M2.5
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%747574
Price25%524763
Inputs & features15%707035
Context window10%606032
Overall100%66/10066/10061/100
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 Qwen3.6 Plus vs MiniMax-M2.5 specifications side by side
SpecificationQwen3.5 PlusAlibaba (Qwen)Qwen3.6 PlusAlibaba (Qwen)MiniMax-M2.5MiniMax
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)146.8147.6 (best)146.7
ECI rank#65 of 148#59 of 148 (best)#66 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions84.9%88.4% (best)—
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics—38.3%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics86.7%93.3% (best)—
SWE-bench VerifiedFixing real GitHub issues—57.9%—
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions25.4%44.1% (best)—
Price per million tokens
Input$0.40$0.50$0.30 (best)
Output$2.40$3.00$1.20 (best)
Cached input—$0.05$0.03 (best)
Blended (3:1)$0.90$1.13$0.525 (best)
Long-context rateSame rateOver 256K: $2.00 / $6.00Same rate
Price sourceOfficial Alibaba APIOfficial Alibaba APIOfficial MiniMax (minimax.io) API
Limits
Context window1,000,000 tokens (best)1,000,000 tokens (best)204,800 tokens
Max output65,536 tokens65,536 tokens131,072 tokens (best)
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesYesYesNo
PDFsNoNoNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoYesYesNo
ReasoningYesYesYes
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputNoNoNo
Availability
WeightsProprietaryProprietaryOpen
API model IDqwen3.5-plusqwen3.6-plusMiniMax-M2.5
API providers101821 (best)
ReleasedFeb 16, 2026Apr 2, 2026Feb 12, 2026
Knowledge cutoffApr 2025Apr 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.

  • Qwen3.5 Plus$8.80
  • Qwen3.6 Plus$11.00
  • MiniMax-M2.5$5.40
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

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

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within a point (Qwen3.5 Plus 66/100, Qwen3.6 Plus 66/100, MiniMax-M2.5 61/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3.6 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, Qwen3.5 Plus, Qwen3.6 Plus or MiniMax-M2.5?

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 Plus costs $0.50 input / $3.00 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 $1.13 for Qwen3.6 Plus (2.1× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen3.6 Plus scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.6 Plus 147.6 (#59 of 148), Qwen3.5 Plus 146.8 (#65 of 148) and MiniMax-M2.5 146.7 (#66 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (145.4–149.3 vs 144.6–148.1), so treat the gap as small.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Qwen3.5 Plus and MiniMax-M2.5 yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen3.6 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 and Qwen3.6 Plus have the largest context windows (1,000,000 and 1,000,000 tokens), against 204,800 for MiniMax-M2.5. Maximum output per response: Qwen3.5 Plus up to 65,536, Qwen3.6 Plus up to 65,536, MiniMax-M2.5 up to 131,072 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

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

Are any of these open source?

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

Which is newer?

Qwen3.6 Plus is the newest, released Apr 2, 2026. Qwen3.5 Plus came out Feb 16, 2026; MiniMax-M2.5 came out Feb 12, 2026. Knowledge cutoff: Qwen3.5 Plus Apr 2025, Qwen3.6 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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