# Deepseek V3.1 NVFP4 vs MiniMax M3

On provider list prices, MiniMax M3 costs $0.30 per million input tokens against $0.60 for Deepseek V3.1 NVFP4: 2.0x apart. Output is $1.20 against $1.70 (1.4x). On Allocate both bill at list plus the 7% transaction fee.

## Specifications

| | Deepseek V3.1 NVFP4 | MiniMax M3 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Lab | DeepSeek | MiniMaxAI |
| Access | Open weights | API only |
| Context window | 128K tokens | 512K tokens |
| List price, input | $0.60 / M tokens | $0.30 / M tokens |
| List price, output | $1.70 / M tokens | $1.20 / M tokens |
| Cached input | n/a | $0.06 / M tokens |
| License | MIT | Proprietary API |
| Fine-tunable | Yes | No |

Specifications and provider list prices from the Allocate catalog, checked 2026-07-08. Billed price is list plus the 7% transaction fee.

## What the numbers say

Take 1,000,000 requests a month at 1,200 input and 350 output tokens each. That workload costs $780 a month on MiniMax M3 and $1,315 on Deepseek V3.1 NVFP4 at list: a gap of $535, or 1.7x.

MiniMax M3 reads 512K tokens per request against 128K for Deepseek V3.1 NVFP4, 4.0x the window. That decides which one can take whole documents without splitting them.

## Choose Deepseek V3.1 NVFP4 for

- Open weights you can fine-tune and own
- Fine-tuning under a permissive license (MIT)

## Choose MiniMax M3 for

- The lower list price ($0.30 in / $1.20 out per M tokens)
- The longer context window (512K vs 128K tokens)
- Published cached-input pricing ($0.06 per M tokens)

## Common questions

### Which is cheaper, Deepseek V3.1 NVFP4 or MiniMax M3?

MiniMax M3, on this workload shape. At list prices it is $0.30/$1.20 per million tokens in and out against $0.60/$1.70 for Deepseek V3.1 NVFP4. Billed on Allocate: $0.32/$1.28 against $0.64/$1.82, list plus 7%.

### Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax M3: 524,288 tokens (512K) against 131,072 (128K) for Deepseek V3.1 NVFP4.

### Can I fine-tune Deepseek V3.1 NVFP4 or MiniMax M3?

Deepseek V3.1 NVFP4 publishes open weights (MIT) and can be fine-tuned on your own data. MiniMax M3 is a closed model served over API; its weights are not available.

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[HTML page](https://allocate.network/compare/deepseek-deepseek-v3-1-vs-minimaxai-minimax-m3) · [Deepseek V3.1 NVFP4](https://allocate.network/models/deepseek-deepseek-v3-1.md) · [MiniMax M3](https://allocate.network/models/minimaxai-minimax-m3.md) · [Machine-readable catalog](https://allocate.network/catalog.json)