MiniMax M3.1 Flash in practice: tests and comparisons with DeepSeek V4.1 Flash

A user says signing up on MiniMax's site and installing MiniMax Code yields 400 credits per day, and M3.1 Flash with 1M context and the harness works great.

Input drops to ¥1 and output to ¥4 per million tokens, while Artificial Analysis measures 43 points — above Zhipu, Alibaba and Xiaomi Flash-tier models but below DeepSeek V4.1-Flash-1017; the author notes subscription quotas are shrinking at the same time.

The author runs M3.1 Flash in practice and warns the free window ends 12:00 UTC Oct 22, input then costs $0.15/M, and production should pin the slug instead of random routing.

A user remarks on MiniMax's long free periods — two weeks as Space Bunny and three more days for M3.1 Flash — and says the model's results are a pleasant surprise.

A developer used OpenRouter's free endpoint to have M3.1 Flash build a gaming gear e-commerce site in HTML, CSS and JS, then showed off the UI.

Freebuff, built by jahooma, gives free access to MiniMax M3.1 Flash and other models in browser, desktop and terminal, paid for by ads with nightly quota refills and no card required, though it is still in beta.

A roundup noting MiniMax M3.1 Flash is free to use until the 22nd, that it was the anonymous Space Bunny with 1M context, and listing four free access channels.

Confirms OpenCode's anonymous chart-topper Space Bunny was an early M3.1 Flash, explains how to use the 3-day free tier and its zero-retention policy, and warns that OpenCode's Console was breached over the weekend so outside provider keys should stay unlinked.

A user asks MiniMax whether they picked the wrong model, saying usage on the supposedly unlimited M3.1 Flash burned through quickly — feedback on quota and throttling.

MiniMax Code's R&D lead announced M3.1 Flash, free and unmetered for subscribers until October 25 with no credit consumption.

MiniMax confirmed that OpenCode's free Space Bunny model is M3.1 Flash, offering $0 input/output, zero data retention, 1M context and image/video input, plus how to enable it.

MiniMax is retiring M2.5 and M2.7 on November 18, 2026; from October 19, M Plan and Token Plan requests auto-route to M3.1 Flash Preview with model names and allowances unchanged.