MiniMax H3 Image Early Access: What Is Confirmed — and What to Do Today

Hailuo’s web app already names MiniMax H3 Image. The request string you can send on SandBase is still a video model.

MiniMax H3 Image is a still-image generate-and-edit model. It is for teams who already ship MiniMax H3 video and just saw testers post “early access” frames. The question on 10 November 2026 is whether a production image route should change. It should not. MiniMax Code still calls the preview upcoming. The Open Platform image API is still image-01. SandBase has no still-image H3 card.

If a shot has to move this week, open the MiniMax catalog and stay on the live H3 video family, or make the still on a live image card and animate it later. The naming trap is MiniMax H3 Image to Video. That card accepts a first frame and returns video. It is the H3 video model.

Key takeaway

• On 10 November 2026, MiniMax Code still calls H3 Image upcoming and says the preview is not confirmation that public access is live. It also says no canonical model identifier is available.
• Hailuo’s public web-app config at hailuoai.video lists MiniMax-H3-Image as an image model: type t2i, mode image-reference, maxSupportImageCount 16, maxPromptLength 32000, filter tags edit, 4k, and art. That object has no USD price and no resolution enum.
• Testers began posting Hailuo Early Access on the evening of 9 November 2026 Asia/Shanghai. @MiniMax_AI and @Hailuo_AI had no H3 Image launch post in the 1–10 November window checked for this note. Hailuo’s “thank you!!!!” reply is engagement.
• MiniMax’s Open Platform image price is still image-01 and image-01-live at $0.0035 per image. That figure is not an H3 Image price. SandBase candidate still-image paths returned HTTP 404.
• Callable today: MiniMax H3 Text to Video at $0.13 per second at 2K and $0.06 per second at 768P. Five seconds at 2K is $0.65. Five seconds at 768P is $0.30.

Where H3 is today

The generation with a SandBase model card is video. These pages describe that family, and the still-image gap this note is about. Companion notes in this series are at the end.

• MiniMax H3: Native 2K Stereo Video is the 1 August 2026 introduction. Use the live cards for duration and price. That post’s older 10-second cap and $0.30–$0.80 range are not the current flagship table.
• Seedream 5.5 release is the honesty-pattern sibling: a vendor announcement, no API ID, a live previous card. The routing guide keeps Seedream 5.5 off the callable column. Seedream 5.5 paths were still HTTP 404 on 10 November 2026.
• Cards: H3 text-to-video, H3 image-to-video, and H3 reference-to-video. Stills you can name today include Seedream 5.0 Pro at $0.09 per image. The catalog index is llms-full.txt. Calls use the run API.

I stopped on the Hailuo object because it is the first official place the model name appears, and it is still not an API schema.

What is confirmed

MiniMax Code H3 Image preview, captured 10 Nov 2026, Asia/Shanghai. Two-region crop of the same page: the hero calls it an “upcoming image model,” and the expanded FAQ states “This preview is not confirmation that public access is live.” Source: code.minimax.io/tools/h3-image.

Confirmed means a primary page or a first-party product config said it, and we retrieved that page on 10 November 2026 (about 08:39 UTC, 16:39 Asia/Shanghai).

The Code page says not to assume free access, open weights, or unrestricted commercial rights. Pricing, access, and license terms wait on the published model documentation.

Hailuo’s homepage title is still “Hailuo AI: MiniMax H3 LIVE NOW. Top-Tier Quality, Versatile References.” That line is the existing H3 video brand. It does not, by itself, announce H3 Image.

Hailuo homepage at hailuoai.video on 10 Nov 2026, Asia/Shanghai. The visible branding is H3 video: “H3 LIVE NOW,” the Create Video tab selected, a MiniMax H3 chip, and a “MiniMax H3 Is Live” banner for multimodal video. This is not, by itself, an H3 Image launch announcement.

The image-model object is a separate blob in the same public payload. Fields we read on MiniMax-H3-Image: modelId, modelKey, and aid are all MiniMax-H3-Image; disablePromptOptimization is true; sortIndex is 0; it is the first key in imageModelKeys. The i18n string H3_Image_Desc is “New architecture, stunning visuals, versatile styles.” No USD price, no credit table, and no 1K/2K/4K resolution enum were attached to that object. The string 4k is a filter tag. A filter tag is not a resolution table.

We did not log in. enableAt: true means the config marks the model enabled. It does not prove every Hailuo account sees the picker.

SandBase returned HTTP 404 Model Not Found for /models/minimax/h3-image on 10 Nov 2026, Asia/Shanghai. Cookie dialogs were dismissed before capture. Rechecked still 404 at 16:45 Asia/Shanghai the same day.

Live SandBase card for MiniMax H3 Image to Video on 10 Nov 2026, Asia/Shanghai. The model id minimax/h3/image-to-video is visible under the title. This is a video endpoint, not H3 Image.

The image-to-video card, same day: required image (first frame, JPEG, PNG, or WebP URL), optional end_image, prompt up to 7,000 characters, duration 4 through 15 seconds (default 5), resolution 768P or 2K (default 2K). Billing is $0.13 per second at 2K and $0.06 per second at 768P. The default 5-second 2K run shows $0.65. A 5-second 768P run is $0.30. Failed runs are not charged, which is the card’s own sentence. There is no aspect-ratio field on this card. Text-to-video uses the same per-second table and adds aspect ratios 21:9, 16:9, 4:3, 1:1, 3:4, and 9:16 (default 16:9).

SandBase Seedream 5.0 Pro card on 10 Nov 2026, Asia/Shanghai: model id bytedance/seedream/5.0/pro and a displayed run estimate / RUN button of $0.09. This is the callable still-image route, not H3 Image and not Seedream 5.5.

Seedream 5.0 Pro’s billing table says $0.09 per image, one image per request, jpeg or png. The run control showed $0.09. Failed runs are not charged. Seedream 5.0 Flash’s billing table says $0.018 per image. The catalog line in llms-full.txt still says “$0.02 per run” for Flash. Quote the billing table when they disagree. Seedream 5.5, 5.5 Pro, and 5.5 Flash returned HTTP 404, same as on 9 November.

What testers reported

Reported means a tester or aggregator posted it. It stays in this bucket until a docs page says the same thing.

@MiniMax_AI’s latest original posts in that window, checked for the brief, were about M3.1 Flash on 7 November 2026 Asia/Shanghai. None of them were an H3 Image launch. I am not inventing a tweet to fill that gap.

What we do not know

A wrong model string is worse than a blank cell. None of the following was on the Code page, the Open Platform docs, or a SandBase card on 10 November 2026:

• An Open Platform model ID and request schema for H3 Image
• A USD price, a credit schedule beyond that one tester line, or commercial license terms
• Whether Early Access is open to every Hailuo login
• A SandBase model string, card URL, or /v1/run body
• An official resolution enum and an official aspect-ratio list
• Whether MiniMax will open-weight H3 Image
• An official @MiniMax_AI or @Hailuo_AI launch post
• Seedream 5.5 on SandBase

Do not confuse these with H3 Image

Image-to-video is video. minimax/h3/image-to-video takes a picture and returns a clip. The words “image” in that ID are the input, not the product. Reference-to-video (minimax/h3/reference-to-video) accepts up to 9 images, 3 videos, and 3 audio clips, and charges $0.04 for each reference image beyond the fifth. Hailuo’s 16-reference cap belongs to the still-image app config. Those two numbers are different products. The August video post is the right history page, and the wrong price page.

P-H3-Image is a third-party derivative. On 3 November 2026 Pruna published P-H3-Image, an open-weights image model built on the MiniMax-H3 video model. That is Pruna’s model, not MiniMax’s H3 Image, and not a SandBase route. The MiniMax-H3 GitHub repo and the open-source news post are the video checkpoint story.

image-01’s $0.0035 is image-01. The release notes list Image-01 on 15 February 2025 and the H3 video line on 31 July 2026. They do not list H3 Image. Pasting $0.0035 into an H3 Image budget would bill the wrong model.

MiniMax Open Platform pricing overview on 10 Nov 2026, Asia/Shanghai. The Image table lists image-01 and image-01-live at $0.0035 per image. There is no H3 Image row. Do not present $0.0035 as an H3 Image price. Source: platform.minimax.io/docs/pricing/overview.

Try today on SandBase

API status, 10 November 2026: H3 Image has no published Open Platform ID and no SandBase card. This is not an H3 Image API guide.

The text-to-video card’s documented call is POST /v1/run, with fields at the top level of the JSON. The run reference says asynchronous tasks return an id and that you poll GET /v1/run/{id} until the status is terminal. This sample asks for 5 seconds at 768P, which the billing table prices at $0.30. The flagship look is 2K at $0.13 per second, so the same 5 seconds is $0.65. I am not claiming this prompt was executed for the article.

curl -sS https://api.sandbase.ai/v1/run \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SANDBASE_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "minimax/h3/text-to-video",
    "prompt": "A slow push-in on a cliffside observatory at dusk, layered fog, readable scale, soft practical lights in the windows, native stereo wind and distant machinery.",
    "duration": 5,
    "resolution": "768P",
    "aspect_ratio": "16:9"
  }'

There is no minimax/h3-image string to drop in. When a card appears, rerun the still on that card and keep both files. Until then, a concept frame belongs on Seedream 5.0 Pro, and a moving shot belongs on image-to-video. The shot workflow is that handoff. The routing table is which still to pick.

If 2K is more than the brief needs, H3 Max text-to-video is $0.08 per second at 768P ($0.40 for 5 seconds). H3 Max Turbo image-to-video is $0.04 per second at 768P ($0.20 for 5 seconds). Read the card you call.

I would keep production stills on a card that prints an ID and a price. Hailuo Early Access is a place to look, if you were selected, and a poor place to hard-code.

FAQ

Is MiniMax H3 Image on an API?

Not on the Open Platform pages checked on 10 November 2026. The image guide, API overview, pricing overview, and model release notes list image-01, not H3 Image. Hailuo’s web app config names MiniMax-H3-Image. That is app configuration. SandBase returns HTTP 404 for the still-image paths we requested.

Is H3 Image the same as MiniMax H3 image-to-video?

No. Image-to-video is the live video route minimax/h3/image-to-video. H3 Image is the still generate-and-edit name on the Code preview and in the Hailuo image catalog. Sending a still to image-to-video animates it. It does not call H3 Image.

What resolution and how many reference images does it support?

Hailuo’s public config sets maxSupportImageCount to 16 and includes a 4k filter tag, plus edit and art. The same object has no resolution enum. Tester reports of 1K, 2K, 4K, and 21:9 through 9:16 stay in the reported bucket. Do not copy them into an API client.

Did MiniMax announce it on X?

No launch post from @MiniMax_AI or @Hailuo_AI showed up in the 1–10 November 2026 check recorded for this piece. @Hailuo_AI replied “thank you!!!!” to a tester. That reply is not a launch.

What do I call today?

H3 text-to-video when the idea can start as a clip. H3 image-to-video when you already have a still. Seedream 5.0 Pro at $0.09 when the deliverable is a still. All three cards were HTTP 200 on 10 November 2026.

The H3 video introduction is here. Read it for the July launch, then price the job from the card.

Related reading

• H3 Image versus Seedream, GPT Image, and Nano Banana: which still route has an ID today.
• Turn a concept still into an H3 video shot: the temporary path while the image card is missing.
• Seedream 5.5: what was confirmed: the same kind of gap, one day earlier, for a different vendor.

Still unverified, and the next click

This note contains no H3 Image output. Code’s showcase images are excluded on purpose. Tester frames are not reprinted as official samples. Chart-like quality claims from X stay in the reported table.

Sign in and open the MiniMax catalog. We will add a card and a model string when one exists. Until the catalog lists it, do not poll a guessed path.