Kimi K3 vs Claude Sonnet 5
Side-by-side comparison of API pricing, specs, benchmarks, and capabilities
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Mby Moonshot
|
Claude Sonnet 5 Intro price
Aby Anthropic
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Status | Current flagship Open weights | Current mid tier |
| Released | Jul 16, 2026 | Jun 30, 2026 |
| Pricing per million tokens | ||
| Input | $3.00/Mtok | $2.00/Mtok |
| Output | $15.00/Mtok | $10.00/Mtok |
| Blended avg | $9.00/Mtok | $6.00/Mtok |
| Cached input | $0.300/Mtok | $0.200/Mtok |
| Specifications | ||
| Context window | 1M tokens | 1M tokens |
| Parameters | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Speed (TPS) | — | — |
| Modalities | ||
| Input |
textimage
|
textimage
|
| Benchmarks sources: Artificial Analysis, LMSYS Chatbot Arena (UC Berkeley), Moonshot launch benchmarks / Vellum LLM Leaderboard | ||
| Avg benchmark score | 90.7 | |
| Perf / dollar | 15.1 | |
| GPQA Diamond | 93.5 | 96.2 |
| SWE-Bench | — | 85.2 |
| Providers | ||
| Available from |
Moonshot — $3.00/$15.00/Mtok
|
Anthropic — $2.00/$10.00/Mtok
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Cost at scale — 1M tokens (50/50 input/output)
| Volume | Kimi K3 | Claude Sonnet 5 | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1M tokens | $9 | $6 | $3 (33.3%) |
| 10M tokens | $90 | $60 | $30 (33.3%) |
| 100M tokens | $900 | $600 | $300 (33.3%) |
| 1000M tokens | $9000 | $6000 | $3000 (33.3%) |
Summary
Kimi K3 by Moonshot costs $3.00/Mtok input and $15.00/Mtok output, with a 1M-token context window. It supports text, image input.
Claude Sonnet 5 by Anthropic costs $2.00/Mtok input and $10.00/Mtok output, with a 1M-token context window. It supports text, image input.
On a blended cost basis, Claude Sonnet 5 is 33.3% cheaper than Kimi K3.
On benchmarks, Claude Sonnet 5 scores higher (90.7 vs ) on average. In terms of value, Claude Sonnet 5 has better performance per dollar (15.1 vs ).
Note: Pricing is per million tokens. Actual costs vary with usage patterns, prompt caching, and batch discounts. Always verify against official provider pricing pages.