MiniMax
MiniMax in 2026 ships the M3 model with a 1M-token context, plus M2.7 and Speech 2.8. Plans run from $20 Plus to $120 Ultra a month, or pay per token.
About MiniMax
What is MiniMax (2026 update)
MiniMax is a general-purpose AI company that builds and sells access to its own large language, speech, image, and video generation models through an API, a Token Plan subscription, and consumer-facing apps like Talkie. It competes directly with providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepSeek, and Kimi on model quality and price rather than being a single-purpose tool.
What is new in 2026
MiniMax’s flagship release in 2026 is MiniMax M3, launched in June, an open-weight model built for coding and agentic work with a 1 million token context window powered by the company’s own MiniMax Sparse Attention architecture. M3 is a mixture-of-experts model with about 428 billion total parameters that activates roughly 23 billion per token, and it is natively multimodal, handling text, image, and video input along with computer-use style desktop operation. Earlier in the year, MiniMax released M2.7 in March for software engineering and agent workflows, and Speech 2.8 in January for expressive text-to-speech. On the pricing side, MiniMax cut its API-vlm rate from $0.06 to $0.01 per request effective July 22, 2026, and it closed its paid Music Generation and Lyrics Generation APIs to new users while discontinuing the free music API variants, effective August 20, 2026.
Key features
- MiniMax M3, an open-weight 428B-parameter MoE model with 1M-token context and native multimodal input
- MiniMax M2.7 for coding, agent workflows, and professional document tasks
- MiniMax Speech 2.8 text-to-speech family for natural, expressive voice output
- MiniMax-H3 video generation model, priced per output second
- Prepaid API credits that do not require a subscription, valid for 365 days
- Consumer apps including Talkie for character chat built on MiniMax’s own models
Pricing in 2026
MiniMax does not offer a generally available free API tier, though it runs occasional product trials and promotional credits. Access is priced either through a monthly Token Plan subscription or pay-as-you-go API credits.
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Plus | $20/month | Included monthly subscription quota on rolling 5-hour and weekly windows, aimed at personal projects |
| Max | $50/month | Larger included quota for professional coding work |
| Ultra | $120/month | Largest subscription quota, for heavy daily use |
| Pay-as-you-go | Starts at $5 for 5,000 credits | Prepaid credits valid 365 days, 1,000 credits equal $1 at published API rates |
Published pay-as-you-go API rates include $0.30 per 1 million input tokens and $1.20 per 1 million output tokens for MiniMax-M3 Standard up to 512K tokens, $60 per 1 million characters for speech-2.8-turbo, and $0.0035 per image for image generation. Unused subscription quota does not carry over month to month.
Who should use it
MiniMax fits developers and companies that want a lower-cost alternative to the largest US model providers for coding, agentic, and multimodal workloads, especially teams that need a very long context window or want to self-host an open-weight model. The consumer side, through apps like Talkie, is aimed at people who want character-based chat and voice experiences rather than a general assistant.
Limitations and alternatives
Because MiniMax has no standing free API tier, developers who want to test the models seriously need to either buy prepaid credits or commit to a monthly Token Plan, which is a higher bar than providers that offer an ongoing free quota. The company has also trimmed some services in 2026, closing paid Music and Lyrics Generation APIs to new users and cutting the free music variants entirely, which signals that its product lineup is still shifting and features available today are not guaranteed to stay free or even available. Alternatives worth comparing include DeepSeek and Kimi for similarly priced open-weight coding and agent models, and OpenAI or Anthropic for teams that prioritize the most established ecosystem and tooling over lowest cost per token.
Frequently asked questions
Does MiniMax have a free plan in 2026?
There is no generally available free API tier. MiniMax runs occasional product trials and promotional credits separate from its paid services, so check the official site for current offers.
What is MiniMax M3?
MiniMax M3 is the company's 2026 flagship open-weight model, a mixture-of-experts model with about 428 billion total parameters, a 1 million token context window, and native multimodal input including computer-use style desktop operation.
How much does MiniMax cost per month?
Subscription Token Plans run $20/month for Plus, $50/month for Max, and $120/month for Ultra, each with an included monthly usage quota. Pay-as-you-go API credits start at $5 for 5,000 credits.
What happened to MiniMax's Music Generation API?
MiniMax closed its paid Music Generation and Lyrics Generation APIs to new users and discontinued the free music API variants, effective August 20, 2026.
Information last verified: September 2026.
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