ZMIME
Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Qwen3.7 Plus vs Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite vs MiniMax-M3

Too close to call on our weighted score (Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite 70, Qwen3.7 Plus 70, MiniMax-M3 69). The right pick depends on what you value most.

  1. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.7 Plus

    Released Jun 2, 2026

    70/100
    • ECI147.4
    • Price$0.40 / $1.60
    • Context1M
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.7 Plus

  2. Google

    Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite

    Released Jul 21, 2026

    70/100
    • ECI145.1
    • Price$0.30 / $2.50
    • Context1.05M
    Full specs Remove Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite

  3. MiniMax

    MiniMax-M3

    Released Jun 1, 2026

    69/100
    • ECI147.0
    • Price$0.30 / $1.20
    • Context1.05M
    Full specs Remove MiniMax-M3
01 — Verdict

Too close to call

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within a point (Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite 70/100, Qwen3.7 Plus 70/100, MiniMax-M3 69/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3.7 Plus for raw capability and MiniMax-M3 on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityQwen3.7 PlusCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.7 Plus 147.4 · MiniMax-M3 147.0 · Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite 145.1
  • Lowest priceMiniMax-M3MiniMax-M3 $0.525 · Qwen3.7 Plus $0.70 · Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite $0.85 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextGemini 3.5 Flash Lite and MiniMax-M3Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite 1,048,576 · MiniMax-M3 1,048,576 · Qwen3.7 Plus 1,000,000 tokens
  • Widest inputsGemini 3.5 Flash LiteQwen3.7 Plus: Text, Images, Video · Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: Text, Images, PDFs, Audio, Video · MiniMax-M3: Text, Images, Video
  • Self-hostingMiniMax-M3Publishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightQwen3.7 PlusGemini 3.5 Flash LiteMiniMax-M3
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%757274
Price25%575363
Inputs & features15%8010070
Context window10%606161
Overall100%70/10070/10069/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

Qwen3.7 Plus vs Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite vs MiniMax-M3 specifications side by side
SpecificationQwen3.7 PlusAlibaba (Qwen)Gemini 3.5 Flash LiteGoogleMiniMax-M3MiniMax
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)147.4 (best)145.1147.0
ECI rank#61 of 148 (best)#79 of 148#62 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions87.9%83.3%90.9% (best)
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics34.4% (best)26.0%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics93.3% (best)71.1%71.1%
Price per million tokens
Input$0.40$0.30 (best)$0.30 (best)
Output$1.60$2.50$1.20 (best)
Cached input$0.04$0.03 (best)$0.06
Blended (3:1)$0.70$0.85$0.525 (best)
Long-context rateOver 256K: $1.20 / $4.80Same rateOver 512K: $0.60 / $2.40
Price sourceOfficial Alibaba APIOfficial Google APIOfficial MiniMax (minimax.io) API
Limits
Context window1,000,000 tokens1,048,576 tokens (best)1,048,576 tokens (best)
Max output64,000 tokens65,536 tokens512,000 tokens (best)
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesYesYesYes
PDFsNoYesNo
AudioNoYesNo
VideoYesYesYes
ReasoningYesYesminimal · low · medium · highYes
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputYesYesNo
Availability
WeightsProprietaryProprietaryOpen
API model IDqwen3.7-plusgemini-3.5-flash-liteMiniMax-M3
API providers252642 (best)
ReleasedJun 2, 2026Jul 21, 2026Jun 1, 2026
Knowledge cutoffApr 2025Mar 2026—
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.

  • Qwen3.7 Plus$7.20
  • Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite$8.00
  • MiniMax-M3$5.40
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Qwen3.7 Plus, Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite or MiniMax-M3?

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within a point (Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite 70/100, Qwen3.7 Plus 70/100, MiniMax-M3 69/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3.7 Plus for raw capability and MiniMax-M3 on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.7 Plus, Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite or MiniMax-M3?

MiniMax-M3 is cheaper at $0.30 input / $1.20 output per million tokens (official MiniMax (minimax.io) API price). Qwen3.7 Plus costs $0.40 input / $1.60 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price); Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite costs $0.30 input / $2.50 output per million tokens (official Google API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.525 per million tokens for MiniMax-M3 versus $0.70 for Qwen3.7 Plus (1.3× as much) and $0.85 for Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite (1.6× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen3.7 Plus scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.7 Plus 147.4 (#61 of 148), MiniMax-M3 147.0 (#62 of 148) and Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite 145.1 (#79 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (145.7–148.9 vs 142.7–149.8), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — MiniMax-M3 90.9%, Qwen3.7 Plus 87.9%, Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite 83.3%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3.7 Plus 93.3%, Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite 71.1%, MiniMax-M3 71.1%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Qwen3.7 Plus, Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite and MiniMax-M3 yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen3.7 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?

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite and MiniMax-M3 have the largest context windows (1,048,576 and 1,048,576 tokens), against 1,000,000 for Qwen3.7 Plus. Maximum output per response: Qwen3.7 Plus up to 64,000, Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite up to 65,536, MiniMax-M3 up to 512,000 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Qwen3.7 Plus accepts text, images and video; Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite accepts text, images, PDFs, audio and video; MiniMax-M3 accepts text, images and video. Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

MiniMax-M3 publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Qwen3.7 Plus and Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite is the newest, released Jul 21, 2026. Qwen3.7 Plus came out Jun 2, 2026; MiniMax-M3 came out Jun 1, 2026. Knowledge cutoff: Qwen3.7 Plus Apr 2025, Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite Mar 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

Related comparisons