Kimi K3 API Pricing & Cost Calculator

Kimi K3 is the value-frontier pick: cheaper than Claude Opus 5 or GPT-5.6 Sol, smarter than the workhorse tier. Pair its 90% cache discount with long-context agentic workflows for the best economics.

Kimi K3 is Moonshot AI's frontier reasoning model, sitting just behind Claude Opus 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol on the smartness tier but significantly cheaper per token.

By TechCompare · Updated

Input tokens
100,000
50% cached
Output tokens
5,000
per request
Volume
100 / monthly
Standard API

Calculator

Cost Comparison

Based on 100,000 input tokens (50% cached), 5,000 output tokens, and 100 requests.

How this is calculated

Kimi K3 is priced at $3.00 per million input tokens and $15.00 per million output tokens, with a 90% prompt caching discount ($0.30 per million). That puts it between Claude Sonnet 5 ($2/$10) and Claude Opus 5 ($5/$25), positioning it as the value-frontier pick.

Verdict

Kimi K3 is the value-frontier pick: cheaper than Claude Opus 5 or GPT-5.6 Sol, smarter than the workhorse tier. Pair its 90% cache discount with long-context agentic workflows for the best economics.

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Frequently asked questions

Is Kimi K3 cheaper than Claude Sonnet 5?
No - Kimi K3 costs $3.00 per million input and $15.00 per million output vs Sonnet 5's $2.00/$10.00. Kimi sits between Sonnet 5 and Opus 5, priced for buyers who need more intelligence than Sonnet without paying Opus rates.