# MiniMax M3 API

> MiniMax-M3 is MiniMax's flagship multimodal foundation model, which MiniMax describes as open-weight. It is built on MiniMax Sparse Attention, which selects key-value blocks to cut long-context compute and supports up to a 1M-token context, and it was trained natively on text and visual data for image and video understanding. MiniMax positions it for long-horizon coding, agentic tool use and autonomous multi-step work such as research paper reproduction and GPU kernel optimization.

Source: https://www.sandbase.ai/model/minimax/minimax-m3
API reference: https://www.sandbase.ai/model/minimax/minimax-m3/docs

## Facts

- Provider: MiniMax
- Type: Language model
- Model ID: `minimax/minimax-m3`
- Price: $0.22 per 1M input tokens, $0.90 per 1M output tokens (25% off list price)
- Context window: 1M tokens, up to 512K output tokens
- Capabilities: chat, vision, reasoning, structured output, function calling
- Billing: pay per use from one SandBase balance; no provider account or subscription needed

## Call it

- Chat Completions API: `POST https://api.sandbase.ai/v1/chat/completions`

```bash
curl -X POST https://api.sandbase.ai/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SANDBASE_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
  "model": "minimax/minimax-m3",
  "messages": [
    {
      "role": "user",
      "content": "Hello"
    }
  ],
  "max_tokens": 2048
}'
```

## FAQ

### How do I call MiniMax M3 through SandBase?

Create a SandBase API key, then send requests with the model ID "minimax/minimax-m3" to Chat Completions API (/v1/chat/completions) at https://api.sandbase.ai. The request examples on this page show the exact payload.

### How much does MiniMax M3 cost?

$0.22 per 1M input tokens and $0.90 per 1M output tokens with the current 25% discount (list price $0.30 / $1.20), billed per request from your SandBase balance.

### What is the context window of MiniMax M3?

1M tokens of context, with up to 512K output tokens per response.

### How does MiniMax M3 score on benchmarks?

MiniMax M3 scores 29.2 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (v4.3), ranking #44 of 83 models on SandBase; Coding Index 58.6, Agentic Index 29.5. Source: Artificial Analysis, measured as MiniMax-M3.

### Which features does MiniMax M3 support?

MiniMax M3 supports vision (image input), reasoning, function calling, structured output. See Specifications above for the full list.

### Do I need a separate MiniMax account?

No. One SandBase API key and balance gives you access to MiniMax M3 and the other models in the catalog; you do not need to sign up with MiniMax separately.