MiniMax: MiniMax M3.1 Flash (free) vs Meta: Llama Guard 4 12B: Live Promos, Pricing, Hidden Fees & Latency
MiniMax: MiniMax M3.1 Flash (free) (minimax/minimax-m3.1-flash:free) 2026 Q4 Developer Promotion & Volume Credits
Official 2026 Q4 promotion for MiniMax: MiniMax M3.1 Flash (free): Activate ephemeral prefix caching to slash input costs by 50% (down to 0/1M) or route via asynchronous Batch API for 50% off standard token rates.
Meta: Llama Guard 4 12B (meta-llama/llama-guard-4-12b) 2026 Q4 Developer Promotion & Volume Credits
Official 2026 Q4 promotion for Meta: Llama Guard 4 12B: Activate ephemeral prefix caching to slash input costs by 50% (down to 0.09/1M) or route via asynchronous Batch API for 50% off standard token rates.
In Etuki October 2026 FinOps telemetry comparing MiniMax: MiniMax M3.1 Flash (free) (API ID: minimax/minimax-m3.1-flash:free) vs Meta: Llama Guard 4 12B (API ID: meta-llama/llama-guard-4-12b), MiniMax: MiniMax M3.1 Flash (free) offers lower standard input pricing at $0/1M tokens ($0/1M output), while MiniMax: MiniMax M3.1 Flash (free) leads in cached prefix economics at $0/1M tokens (50% discount). MiniMax: MiniMax M3.1 Flash (free) achieves a 0ms faster P90 time-to-first-token latency (280ms vs 280ms).
Auto-discovered via live global telemetry registry.
Auto-discovered via live global telemetry registry.
| Specification / FinOps Dimension | MiniMax: MiniMax M3.1 Flash (free) | Meta: Llama Guard 4 12B | Verified Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Official Vendor API ID | minimax/minimax-m3.1-flash:free | meta-llama/llama-guard-4-12b | Pinned Snapshot IDs |
| Standard Input / Output (per 1M) | $0 / $0 | $0.18 / $0.18 | MiniMax: MiniMax M3.1 Flash (free) |
| Cache Read Price (per 1M) | $0/1M (50% Off) | $0.09/1M (50% Off) | MiniMax: MiniMax M3.1 Flash (free) |
| Context Window / Max Output | 977K In / 512K Out | 160K In / 16K Out | MiniMax: MiniMax M3.1 Flash (free) |
| P90 First-Token / Edge Latency | 280ms | 280ms | MiniMax: MiniMax M3.1 Flash (free) (-0ms) |
MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is a multimodal model from MiniMax. Compared with M3, it delivers significant improvements across multiple benchmarks, particularly in complex agentic tasks, cod
Llama Guard 4 is a Llama 4 Scout-derived multimodal pretrained model, fine-tuned for content safety classification. Similar to previous versions, it can be used to classify content
Real-Time Stack Cost & Hidden-Fee Simulator (MAU / Token / Egress / GMV)
Calibrated with Reddit r/FinOps & r/devops telemetry: Includes Context Caching, Bandwidth Egress, and MoR Tax
🛰️Switch from MiniMax: MiniMax M3.1 Flash (free) to Meta: Llama Guard 4 12B
Llama Guard 4 is a Llama 4 Scout-derived multimodal pretrained model, fine-tuned for content safety classification. Similar to previous versions, it can be used to classify content Verified P90 latency of 280ms.