# MiniMax M2.5 — Near-Frontier Agents at a Fraction of Opus Economics

Times of AI Desk · 2026-02-12 · Models

[https://timesof.ai/2026/02/minimax-releases-m2-5-low-cost-frontier-productivity-model](https://timesof.ai/2026/02/minimax-releases-m2-5-low-cost-frontier-productivity-model)

> MiniMax released M2.5 and M2.5 Lightning (Feb 12): vendor SWE-Bench Verified 80.2%; Lightning ~100 tok/s at $0.30/$2.40 per MTok. Open variants on Hugging Face (modified MIT); positioned for continuous agents ~$1/hr in company estimates. Cost-per-task is the trade—not another Elo screenshot.

When a model can sustain high-quality agentic work for roughly **$1 per hour**, new application classes become practical—persistent agents, always-on monitoring, mass parallel runs. MiniMax’s proprietary frame: sell **cost-per-task**, not only bench proximity to Opus.

**MiniMax** launched **M2.5** and **M2.5 Lightning** on February 12. Vendor scores: **80.2%** on SWE-Bench Verified; leading or near-leading on Multi-SWE-Bench and BrowseComp (company post). Focus: coding, agentic tool use, search, office productivity; trained with RL across hundreds of thousands of complex environments (company). **Lightning**: ~**100 tokens/second** (~2× typical frontier throughput cited), **$0.30/M** input and **$2.40/M** output; standard variant even lower priced; both support caching. Company/coverage: ~**1/10–1/20** the cost of Claude Opus 4.6 / peer frontier output pricing. Open variants on Hugging Face under modified MIT; full API also offered. Lightning targets speed-critical deployments with identical capability claim vs standard.

## Claims vs checks

Pricing, speed, and license claims are **MiniMax primary**. SWE-Bench / BrowseComp figures are **vendor**—cross-check independent leaderboards. VentureBeat and others relayed cost comparisons; treat multiples as approximate, not audited TCO. “$1/hour” continuous-agent estimate is company-framed arithmetic.

## Limits

- Cheap tokens ≠ cheap end-to-end agents once tools, retries, and human review enter.
- Modified MIT: read redistribution clauses.
- Throughput claims depend on serving stack and batch size.

## Sources

- [MiniMax: “MiniMax M2.5: Built for Real-World Productivity”](https://www.minimax.io/news/minimax-m25) (February 12, 2026). Primary.
- VentureBeat and independent coverage on cost comparisons and benchmark proximity (Feb 12, 2026).
- Hugging Face model cards / community throughput reports.