# Meta Llama 3.1 405B Instruct vs MiniMax M3

On provider list prices, MiniMax M3 costs $0.30 per million input tokens against $3.50 for Meta Llama 3.1 405B Instruct: 11.7x apart. Output is $1.20 against $3.50 (2.9x). On Allocate both bill at list plus the 7% transaction fee.

## Specifications

| | Meta Llama 3.1 405B Instruct | MiniMax M3 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Lab | Meta | MiniMaxAI |
| Access | Open weights | API only |
| Context window | 4K tokens | 512K tokens |
| List price, input | $3.50 / M tokens | $0.30 / M tokens |
| List price, output | $3.50 / M tokens | $1.20 / M tokens |
| Cached input | n/a | $0.06 / M tokens |
| License | Llama community | 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 $5,425 on Meta Llama 3.1 405B Instruct at list: a gap of $4,645, or 7.0x.

MiniMax M3 reads 512K tokens per request against 4K for Meta Llama 3.1 405B Instruct, 128.0x the window. That decides which one can take whole documents without splitting them.

## Choose Meta Llama 3.1 405B Instruct for

- Open weights you can fine-tune and own

## Choose MiniMax M3 for

- The lower list price ($0.30 in / $1.20 out per M tokens)
- The longer context window (512K vs 4K tokens)
- Published cached-input pricing ($0.06 per M tokens)

## Common questions

### Which is cheaper, Meta Llama 3.1 405B Instruct 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 $3.50/$3.50 for Meta Llama 3.1 405B Instruct. Billed on Allocate: $0.32/$1.28 against $3.75/$3.75, list plus 7%.

### Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax M3: 524,288 tokens (512K) against 4,096 (4K) for Meta Llama 3.1 405B Instruct.

### Can I fine-tune Meta Llama 3.1 405B Instruct or MiniMax M3?

Meta Llama 3.1 405B Instruct publishes open weights (Llama community) 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/meta-llama-3-1-405b-instruct-vs-minimaxai-minimax-m3) · [Meta Llama 3.1 405B Instruct](https://allocate.network/models/meta-llama-3-1-405b-instruct.md) · [MiniMax M3](https://allocate.network/models/minimaxai-minimax-m3.md) · [Machine-readable catalog](https://allocate.network/catalog.json)