Third-party MiniMax H3 sites compared: how much you can find out before you pay
Four hosted doors onto the same MiniMax H3, compared on free tier, per-second rate and what each lets you check — including two rows another site wins.
Editorial desk
MiniMax builds H3 and sells it two ways: through its own consumer app, and through its own API. Everything else — this site included — is a third-party front end that buys seconds from that API and resells them.
The model is identical at all of them. What is not identical is how much you can learn before you hand over money, and whether the rate you are charged is one you can check. Those two differ by more than the prices do.
Everything below is what each site publishes on its own pages, checked on 2026-09-03 and re-checked on 2026-09-05. Where another site is ahead of us, the table says so — and on the free tier, two of them now are.
How much real H3 you get before paying anything
| Site | Free MiniMax H3, no card | How it arrives |
|---|---|---|
| minimax-h3ai.video (this site) | 1 clip × 4s at 768P with 32 kHz stereo — 4 seconds | On sign-up, and it does not expire. Seven daily check-ins pay 37 credits, which buys one more at the same size. |
| minimaxh3video.app | 1 clip × 5s at 2K with native audio — 5 seconds | 20 credits on sign-up, all at once |
| minimaxh3.app | 1 clip × 5s at 768P — 5 seconds | 65 credits on sign-up, all at once |
| minimaxh3.ai | "Free credits on signup", amount not published | Not published |
We used to win this row and no longer do. Until 2026-09-05 this site handed out three clips across a week plus a daily allowance on a second, cheaper model. Both are gone: the free tier is one clip, and there is no second model here at all. MiniMax bills us $0.35 for that clip at its published list price, and a free tier priced above half of revenue is one that gets withdrawn later rather than honoured.
So read this row against us:
- minimaxh3video.app's free clip is 2K; ours is 768P. If what you need to judge is how H3 holds up at full resolution, their free tier answers that and ours does not.
- Theirs is five seconds; ours is four. Four is the shortest clip MiniMax's API accepts, so this is the smallest sample any of these sites could give.
Two things ours still does that theirs does not: it never expires, and it is the same model, size and audio path as every paid clip here — so what you see in it is what you get after paying, only shorter.
What a second costs after that
Every site sells credits, and a credit is worth something different at each one. The only comparison that means anything is the same clip, priced at each site's own best and worst tier.
| Site | Per 768P second | Per 2K second | 5-second 2K clip |
|---|---|---|---|
| minimaxh3.app | $0.135 – $0.216 | $0.207 – $0.333 | $1.04 – $1.66 |
| minimaxh3video.app | not stated separately | not stated separately | $1.20 – $2.00 (their figure) |
| minimax-h3ai.video | $0.180 – $0.266 | $0.292 – $0.432 | $1.57 – $2.32 |
| minimaxh3.ai | not published | not published | not published |
We are not the cheapest sticker here. On a finished 2K clip minimaxh3.app comes out lower, and their pack credits never expire where ours keep for twelve months. If cost per clip is the entire decision, that table is your answer and you should act on it.
What the sticker does not settle is the two questions underneath it: how many clips you will actually burn to get one you keep, and whether the rate you are quoted today is the rate you will be charged next month. Those are the next two sections.
The one number on this page you can audit
MiniMax publishes its own per-second rate for both resolutions, on a page that belongs to neither us nor them. We do not restate the figure here — a site selling access to a model has no business quoting its supplier's price list — but the ratio between the two resolutions is a different thing, and it is the one number on this page you can audit.
| 768P | 2K | 2K ÷ 768P | |
|---|---|---|---|
| MiniMax list price | — | — | 1.625 |
| minimax-h3ai.video | 8 credits | 13 credits | 1.625 |
| minimaxh3.app | 13 credits | 20 credits | 1.538 |
| minimaxh3video.app | 2 credits | 4 credits | 2.000 |
One credit here is one cent of the published price, so the ratio lands on the upstream ratio exactly. Look MiniMax's number up, multiply by 100, and that is the charge. It is the only rate on this page you can check against a source none of us controls, and it is why our number cannot quietly drift while a marketing page keeps quoting the old one.
The practical edge of matching the upstream ratio is drafting. Because 2K genuinely costs 1.625× what 768P costs, a scale built on that ratio prices a 768P draft at what a 768P draft actually is. A 2:1 scale charges you as if a 768P take were half a 2K take when it is closer to two-thirds — which quietly taxes the exact workflow, iterate cheap and finish once, that keeps a video budget down.
Everything else worth checking before you pick
| this site | minimaxh3.app | minimaxh3video.app | minimaxh3.ai | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shortest clip you can buy | 4s | 4s | 5s | not published |
| Generate something with no account at all | sign-in required | sign-in required | not stated | not stated |
| Free clips expire | never | not stated | not stated | not stated |
| Per-second rate published | yes | yes | yes | no |
| Machine-readable price file for AI tools | yes — /pricing.md | no | no | no |
| Native audio in the same pass | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| No watermark | yes | yes | yes | not stated |
| Failed generation refunded | yes | yes | not stated | not stated |
| Commercial use of output | yes — every plan, since 2026-09-07 | check their terms | check their terms | check their terms |
That last row changed on 2026-09-07 and is worth reading twice. Output from this site may be used commercially on every plan, the free one included: clips are generated through MiniMax's API, and MiniMax claims no rights over the Outputs you generate — this site passes that through. For the other three we have not checked — read their terms before you bill a client. What no third-party site can do, this one included, is speak for MiniMax on the model licence itself.
So which one
- You want to see 2K before paying anyone: minimaxh3video.app. Their sign-up grant is exactly one 5-second 2K render, and it is the only free 2K on this page.
- You render finished 2K in volume and price per clip is the decision: minimaxh3.app, on the $29 Creator pack.
- You want to find out the most before committing, iterate at 768P and finish selectively, or be able to verify the rate you are charged: here. Twelve free seconds of real H3 with sound, a 4-second floor, a rate that is one cent per cent of MiniMax's own, and a $9.9 pack that unlocks every mode with no subscription.
- Any site that does not publish its per-second rate: find out what it is before you put money in. That is not an accusation about a particular site; it is the one question a credit balance cannot answer for you.
Our numbers are on the pricing page, and the machine-readable version is at /pricing.md if you would rather diff it than read it. What is free here, in full, is on the free page.
Written by
Editorial desk
minimax-h3ai.video
Published on the MiniMax H3 AI Video Generator, an independent third-party interface built on MiniMax H3.
