Kimi K3 vs Kimi K2.6
Kimi K2.6 costs less on both: $0.57 in and $2.40 out per million tokens, against $0.90 in and $4.50 out for Kimi K3. Both on one key at UplinkSwitch, each next to its developer's list price.
Prices · per million tokens, USD
| Tokens | Kimi K3kimi-k3 | Kimi K2.6kimi-k2.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Input | $0.90Moonshot AI lists $3.00 · 70% under | $0.57Moonshot AI lists $0.95 · 40% under |
| Cached input | $0.09Moonshot AI lists $0.30 · 70% under | $0.096Moonshot AI lists $0.16 · 40% under |
| Output | $4.50Moonshot AI lists $15.00 · 70% under | $2.40Moonshot AI lists $4.00 · 40% under |
| Context window | 1,048,576 tokens | 262,144 tokens |
| Max output | 1,048,576 tokens | 262,144 tokens |
| Input | text, image, video | text, image, video |
| Released | 2026-07-16 | 2026-04-20 |
| Formats | OpenAI SDK | OpenAI SDK |
| Developer | Moonshot AI | Moonshot AI |
List price: each developer's published rate, read October 2026. A model with no cached rate bills cached tokens at its input rate. Live from GET https://api.uplinkswitch.com/v1/catalog.
What the same work costs · USD, here and at list
| Work | Kimi K3 | Kimi K2.6 |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 chat requests | $4.05list $13.50 | $2.34list $3.90 |
| 100 long documents | $5.40list $18.00 | $3.33list $5.55 |
| A month of both, daily | $283.50list $945.00 | $170.10list $283.50 |
A chat request is 2,000 input and 500 output tokens; a long document is 50,000 in and 2,000 out; the month is 1,000 chats and 100 documents a day for 30 days, uncached. Over that month Kimi K2.6 costs $113.40 less here.
Same key, same URL
One base URL and one key serve both models. The request below calls Kimi K3; put kimi-k2.6 in the model field to call Kimi K2.6 instead.
shell
curl https://api.uplinkswitch.com/v1/chat/completions \
-H "authorization: Bearer sk-uplink-live-..." \
-H "content-type: application/json" \
-d '{"model":"kimi-k3","messages":[{"role":"user","content":"Hello"}]}'Model pages: Kimi K3, Kimi K2.6. Pricing by family: Kimi. More comparisons: Kimi K3 vs Claude Sonnet 5.5, MiniMax M2.7 vs Kimi K3, Kimi K3 vs GPT-6.1 Sol, GLM 5.3 vs Kimi K3.
Questions
- Which costs less, Kimi K3 or Kimi K2.6?
- Kimi K2.6 costs less on both: $0.57 in and $2.40 out per million tokens, against $0.90 in and $4.50 out for Kimi K3.
- Can I switch between them by changing the model id?
- Yes. Both answer in the OpenAI SDK format at the same base URL with the same key. Change the model id from kimi-k3 to kimi-k2.6 and nothing else.
- Is there a subscription?
- No. Prepaid credit from $10, with no subscription or monthly fee. Each top-up locks your prices for 30 days.