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MiniMax M3 API pricing

3 providers serve MiniMax M3. MiniMax M3 is an open-weight model (MiniMax Community) with 428B total parameters, 23B active per token (mixture-of-experts), up to 1049K context. Prices below are per 1M tokens, cheapest input first (self-hosting math further down).

Refreshed 2026-08-23 · list prices from provider APIs
Input floor $0.300/1M at Fireworks AI, MiniMax and OpenRouter Output floor $1.20/1M at Fireworks AI, MiniMax and OpenRouter Find your workload winner →
Provider Input $/1M Output $/1M Cache read $/1M Context
Fireworks AI $0.300 $1.20output floor $0.060 512K Use
MiniMax $0.300 $1.20 $0.060 1000K Use
OpenRouter marketplace quote $0.300 $1.20 $0.060 1049K Use

The cheapest way to run MiniMax M3

On an illustrative 70M-input / 30M-output monthly workload, today's lowest listed cost is roughly $57.00/month — the same at Fireworks AI, MiniMax and OpenRouter. Input-heavy, output-heavy and cache-heavy workloads can produce different winners. Use the live mix calculator below rather than combining floors from two different providers. On output-token cost alone, a busy self-hosted deployment can work out cheaper (~$0.631/1M output on 4× MI300X). See the math below. Run your own numbers in the breakeven calculator, or read the breakeven math.

Your actual monthly cost

Uses today's list prices

Cache read uses the listed cache rate where available; otherwise it falls back to normal input price. Batch, write-cache, volume and negotiated discounts are excluded.

Or run it yourself: MiniMax M3 self-hosting economics

MiniMax M3 is open-weight (MiniMax Community), so the API price above competes with the GPU-hour market. 428B total parameters (MoE, ~23B active per token) needs roughly 589 GB VRAM at FP8 or 295 GB at INT4, KV-cache headroom included.

No single GPU fits MiniMax M3 at FP8 (589 GB needed), so it needs a multi-GPU node. Cheapest tracked option: 4× MI300X (192 GB each) at roughly $2.00/hr total (RunPod). Rent 4× MI300X at RunPod → INT4 quantization drops the requirement to 295 GB. Tune it in the calculator.
Breakeven estimate: a well-batched vLLM deployment on 4× MI300X ($2.00/hr) at ~1761 aggregate tok/s and 50% utilization works out to roughly $0.631 per 1M output tokens, versus $1.20 via the cheapest output-token API (Fireworks AI, MiniMax and OpenRouter). Self-hosting wins on cost if you can keep the GPU busy. Planning estimate: throughput varies with hardware, quantization, batch size and context. Tune it in the calculator.

Related models

ModelCheapest in $/1MCheapest out $/1MProviders
MiniMax M2.1 $0.270 $1.20 6
MiniMax M2.5 $0.300 $1.10 6
MiniMax M2 $0.255 $1.02 6
MiniMax M2.7 $0.240 $0.550 4
MiniMax M3 (batch) $0.300 $1.20 1

FAQ

What is the cheapest API for MiniMax M3?

As of 2026-08-23, the lowest input price for MiniMax M3, $0.300 per 1M tokens, is the same list price at Fireworks AI, MiniMax and OpenRouter. The lowest output price, $1.20 per 1M tokens, is likewise shared by the same providers. The cheapest provider for a real workload depends on its input/output mix.

How much VRAM do you need to self-host MiniMax M3?

MiniMax M3 has 428B parameters, so plan for roughly 589 GB of VRAM at FP8 or 295 GB at INT4/AWQ, KV-cache headroom included. That exceeds a single GPU. A typical node is 4× MI300X.

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