MiniMax 2.7 One-Shots a Linear Clone at 95% Lower Cost

Melvin Vivas · X video post · 2026-03-31 · Open on X

Topics: LLM Fundamentals, AI Dev Tools & Productivity, Industry Trends & Job Market · Level: beginner

Summary

Sherry Jiang used MiniMax 2.7 to build a Linear clone in one shot in about 10 minutes. She says it cost about 95% less than Claude Opus 4.6. Her lesson: compare models yourself instead of defaulting to whatever is hyped, or you may overpay for the same result.

Key points

• MiniMax 2.7 one-shot a Linear (issue tracker) clone in about 10 minutes.
• The claimed cost was about 95% cheaper than Claude Opus 4.6.
• Cheaper, less-hyped models can match frontier models on some app-building tasks.
• Benchmark models on your own tasks to control cost.

Resources mentioned

• MiniMax (official) · person · x.com · free
  MiniMax's official X account; MiniMax is the AI lab behind the M3 and H3 models.
  Also in: Running MiniMax M3 Locally in ComfyUI on an RTX 3090 (Melvin Vivas on X · notes)
• Sherry Jiang (@SherryYanJiang) on X · person · x.com · free
  Builder who showed the MiniMax 2.7 Linear clone experiment.
• Claude Opus 4.6 · tool · anthropic.com · paid
  Anthropic's Claude Opus model, version 4.6, which Claude Code was running in this comparison.
  Also in: GLM-5.1 vs Claude Code (Opus 4.6): One-Shot Three.js Racing Game Eval (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), GLM-5.1 Reportedly Beats Claude Opus 4.6 on Cybersecurity (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), When one coding model gets stuck, switch to another (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Codex 5.3 vs Claude Opus 4.6 Side by Side in Cursor (Melvin Vivas on X · notes)

Try this

• Compare cheaper models against frontier models on your own tasks before choosing one.
• Build a Linear-style issue tracker clone with an AI model and compare cost and quality across models.