Kimi K3 lands at Claude Sonnet pricing with Opus-level scores
Moonshot AI launched Kimi K3 on July 16, 2026, and it immediately changed how the Kimi Code versus Claude Code comparison reads.
What Changed
Kimi K3 is a 2.8-trillion-parameter model. On independent benchmarks it scores within two points of Claude Opus 4.8. Its API pricing matches Claude Sonnet at $3/$15 per million tokens.
The previous Kimi option, Kimi K2.7 Code, was priced at $0.95/$4.00 per million tokens. That was roughly 80% cheaper than Claude Opus 4.8 at $5/$25, but it came with a 256K context window and benchmark scores that trailed Anthropic’s models on independently verified tests.
The Operator Takeaway
According to the source, Kimi K2.7 Code still makes sense for cost-sensitive and open-source projects where the 256K context window is sufficient and data residency on Chinese infrastructure is acceptable, or where you can self-host the open weights. Kimi K3 is the play if you want near-Opus performance without paying Opus prices.
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