MiniMax M3 vs Kimi K2.6
MiniMax M3 costs less on both: $0.09 in and $0.36 out per million tokens, against $0.57 in and $2.40 out for Kimi K2.6. Both on one key at UplinkSwitch, each next to its developer's list price.
Prices · per million tokens, USD
Get a key| Tokens | MiniMax M3minimax-m3 | Kimi K2.6kimi-k2.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Input | $0.09MiniMax lists $0.30 · 70% under | $0.57Moonshot AI lists $0.95 · 40% under |
| Cached input | $0.018MiniMax lists $0.06 · 70% under | input rate |
| Output | $0.36MiniMax lists $1.20 · 70% under | $2.40Moonshot AI lists $4.00 · 40% under |
| Context window | 1,000,000 tokens | 262,144 tokens |
| Max output | 524,288 tokens | 262,144 tokens |
| Input | text, image, video | text, image, video |
| Released | 2026-06-01 | 2026-04-20 |
| Formats | OpenAI SDK | OpenAI SDK |
| Developer | MiniMax | 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 | MiniMax M3 | Kimi K2.6 |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 chat requests | $0.36list $1.20 | $2.34list $3.90 |
| 100 long documents | $0.522list $1.74 | $3.33list $5.55 |
| A month of both, daily | $26.46list $88.20 | $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 MiniMax M3 costs $143.64 less here.
Same key, same URL
One base URL and one key serve both models. The MiniMax M3 API and the Kimi K2.6 API answer at the same base URL in the OpenAI format, so a client or SDK setup moves between them by changing the model id. The request below calls MiniMax M3; 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":"minimax-m3","messages":[{"role":"user","content":"Hello"}]}'Model pages: MiniMax M3 API, Kimi K2.6 API. Pricing by family: MiniMax, Kimi. More comparisons: DeepSeek V4 Flash 0423 vs MiniMax M3, MiniMax M3 Uncensored vs MiniMax M3, Kimi K3 vs Kimi K2.6, Kimi K2.6 vs Claude Opus 4.6.
Questions
- Which costs less, MiniMax M3 or Kimi K2.6?
- MiniMax M3 costs less on both: $0.09 in and $0.36 out per million tokens, against $0.57 in and $2.40 out for Kimi K2.6.
- 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 minimax-m3 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.
- Is MiniMax M3 the better pick?
- Better depends on the job; this page compares what the catalog can measure. MiniMax M3 costs less on both: $0.09 in and $0.36 out per million tokens, against $0.57 in and $2.40 out for Kimi K2.6. MiniMax M3 takes 1,000,000 tokens of context against 262,144 for Kimi K2.6. MiniMax M3 is the newer release. Both run on the same key, so the fair test is your own prompt sent to each model id.