MiniMax API Pricing 2026: Plans, Costs & Coding Value
Complete guide to MiniMax API pricing in 2026. Compare M2.7 and M5 models, subscription plans from ¥34/mo, coding benchmarks, and find the best value for developers.
MiniMax Pricing Overview
MiniMax offers two distinct pricing models: pay-as-you-go API pricing for their M-series models and subscription-based credit plans for coding workloads.
API Pricing (Pay-as-you-go)
| Model | Input ($/1M tokens) | Output ($/1M tokens) | Cache Read ($/1M) | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| M2.7 Standard | $0.30 | $1.20 | $0.06 | 205K |
| M2.7 Highspeed | $0.60 | $2.40 | $0.06 | 205K |
| M5 Standard | $4.00 | $16.00 | $0.40 | 1M |
Subscription Plans (Coding)
| Plan | Monthly Price | Annual Price | Credits | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lite | ¥34.32 ($4.70) | ¥411.84 | 4.1B tokens | Entry-level / trial |
| Standard | ¥87.12 ($12) | ¥1,045.44 | 11B tokens | Daily development |
| Pro | ¥289.52 ($40) | ¥3,474.24 | 38B tokens | Professional |
| Max | ¥579.92 ($80) | ¥6,959.04 | 82B tokens | Heavy usage |
MiniMax Plans Breakdown
M2.7 Standard ($0.30 / $1.20)
MiniMax's best all-around model. Scores 80.2% on SWE-bench Verified — outperforming GLM-5 and approaching Claude Opus territory at a fraction of the cost. 1/63rd the price of Claude Opus 4.6 on output tokens.
M2.7 Highspeed ($0.60 / $2.40)
Double the inference speed (100 tok/s) at 2x the price. Suitable for real-time applications where latency matters.
M5 Standard ($4 / $16)
Flagship model with 1M context window. Competes with GPT-5.4 and Claude Sonnet 4.6. Best for complex reasoning tasks that need the full context window.
Subscription Plans
MiniMax's subscription plans target AI coding agents. Credits are pooled across all models (M2.7, TTS, video generation). Annual plans offer 15-20% discount.
What You Get
API access:
- OpenAI-compatible API
- Multimodal (M5 supports video/audio)
- Context caching
- Available globally via api.minimax.io
Subscription benefits:
- Pooled credits across all MiniMax models
- TTS voice synthesis included free
- 20% off-peak discount (PDT 9AM-5PM)
- Cancel anytime
What Users Are Saying
"MiniMax M2.7 at $0.30/$1.20 is the best coding model under $2 per million output. We use it as our default agent model and only fall back to Opus for the hardest tasks." — u/agent_dev, Reddit r/LocalLLaMA
"The subscription plan at ¥87/mo for 11B credits is perfect for my daily coding agent usage. Way cheaper than paying per-token for Claude Code." — u/indie_dev, Reddit r/ChatGPTCoding
"M5's 1M context is legit for codebase analysis. We feed it entire repositories and it handles them without choking." — u/tech_lead, Hacker News
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Best coding benchmark scores in its price range (80.2% SWE-bench)
- Subscription plans offer predictable costs for coding agents
- 1M context on M5 model
- OpenAI-compatible API
Cons:
- Smaller brand recognition vs OpenAI/Anthropic
- Fewer third-party tool integrations
- Chinese company — data residency concerns
- Some users report variable reliability on M5
Who Should Choose MiniMax
- You need a coding-specialized model — M2.7 leads in cost-effective code generation
- You want subscription pricing — predictable monthly cost for agent workloads
- You need multimodal beyond text — M5 handles video and audio input
- You're price-sensitive — per-token pricing is among the cheapest for mid-tier quality
How MiniMax Compares to Alternatives
| Compared to | MiniMax Advantage | Alternative Advantage |
|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek V4 | Better coding benchmarks | Cheaper Flash, 1M context, open source |
| Z.AI (Zhipu) | Cheaper, better coding | Better reasoning (GLM-5) |
| OpenAI GPT-5 | Dramatically cheaper | Better quality, ecosystem |
Verdict
MiniMax M2.7 offers the best value for coding-specific workloads. Its subscription plans make it uniquely suitable for AI coding agents where costs need to be predictable. The M5 model competes with frontier models on context window while undercutting them on price.