Get a MiniMax plan key

Who this is for: anyone with a MiniMax plan or pay-as-you-go account who wants MiniMax models through SpiderGate.

What this does: walks you through finding your MiniMax subscription key, choosing the right billing in SpiderGate, and adding the key to your vault.

Before you begin

A MiniMax account at platform.minimax.io, with either an M Plan subscription or pay-as-you-go credit.
About 2 minutes.

Limits and terms to know first

MiniMax renamed its plan twice: Coding Plan became Token Plan, which is now M Plan, with tiers Go, Explore (3x Go) and Build (7.5x Go). Token Plan is closed to new buyers; existing Token Plan keys carry over. Usage resets over a five-hour window and a weekly window. MiniMax does not publish request counts.

Note: SpiderGate's picker still says "15,000 requests per 5 hours". That number is not on MiniMax's pages.

The plan key starts with sk-cp-. MiniMax says it "only uses your M Plan usage and is not interchangeable with a pay-as-you-go API Key".

Warning: MiniMax says M Plan "is designed for individual, interactive developer use" and "Pay-as-you-go is recommended for production use." Do not run n8n flows, scripts or your own apps on the plan key; use a pay-as-you-go key for those.

Warning: MiniMax says "do not share it", and its terms forbid you to "sublicense, resell, or distribute" its services or to lease, sell or transfer "any access keys". Keep this key to your own brand.

Steps

Step 1 — Copy the key

For the plan key, open platform.minimax.io/console/plan and copy the Subscription Key from Plan Details. For a pay-as-you-go key, use MiniMax's ordinary API keys page.

Step 2 — Add it in SpiderGate

Open Gate → Vault (/dashboard/gate/vault) and click Add Provider. MiniMax appears twice: under Connect a subscription for a plan key and under Pay-as-you-go for a pay-as-you-go key. The group you pick sets Billing for you.

Paste the key into Token Plan Key (the field has that label either way) and add a Label. For a plan key, check Billing shows Subscription and pick your package, so SpiderGate can meter your five-hour and weekly windows (Subscription keys & package tiers).

Under Routing, turn Share with SpiderIQ key pool off. Click Add key.

Verify it worked

When you click Add key, SpiderGate sends one request to MiniMax with the key before it stores anything: it sends a one-token chat request to https://api.minimax.io/v1 (MiniMax does not list models to a plan key).

If MiniMax accepts the key, the dialog closes and the key appears in your vault list.

If it does not, the dialog stays open and shows:

The minimax key did not pass its check: <reason>. Nothing was saved.

The reason is SpiderGate's own wording, never MiniMax's error text. The usual ones are Invalid API key (401 Unauthorized), Access denied (403 Forbidden) and The account behind this key has no credit left (402).

To see the key serve a request, give it a slot in one of your own routing aliases and send a request to that alias. The trace shows which provider answered.

Troubleshoot

A plan key fails the check. Make sure it starts with sk-cp- and comes from Plan Details. A plan key and a pay-as-you-go key are different keys.

Calls are blocked before your usage runs out. MiniMax says usage limits and rate limits are separate, and that "dynamic limits during peak hours" can block calls early.

Too many keys checked for this workspace; try again in …s. SpiderGate runs at most 20 key checks per brand in any 10 minutes. Wait the number of seconds it gives, then click Add key again.

Request timed out (15s) or Could not reach … to check the key. Try again later. The provider did not answer in time. Nothing was saved. Try again in a minute.

The provider is rate-limiting us (429). Try again in a minute. The provider throttled the check itself. Wait a minute and retry.