MiniMax M3: Frontier Speed at 16x Cheaper than Claude Opus & GPT-5.5

MiniMax M3 is presented as a cost-effective alternative to frontier AI coding models like Claude Opus and GPT, claiming to be up to 16x cheaper while delivering comparable performance on coding benchmarks. Following changes to flat-rate subscription models by major AI coding tool providers starting June 1st, the author demonstrates how to configure MiniMax M3 as a custom model in GitHub Copilot, VS Code, and Cursor IDE using a bring-your-own-key approach. The model offers a 1 million token context window, usage-based plans with 5-hour resets, and a 50% launch discount on tokens.