Kimi K3

Jul 2026
Kimi K3
Compare in
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$2.00per task?
$3 / $15per 1M in / outcache $0.30
112 tok/sfirst token in 1.1 s?
1Mcontext

Rankingat max effort?

Alternatives?

Run it yourself

estimate
Fits on✗ 8 GB (phone, laptop)✗ 16 GB✗ 24 GB GPU✗ 48 GB GPU✗ 80 GB GPU
Licencekimi-k3commercial use with conditions

History

5 versions
10203040Jul 25Oct 25Jan 26Apr 26Jul 26Release dateAA Intelligence Index 4.3.2K2 · JulK2 · SepK2.5K2.6K3
10203040Jul 25Jan 26Jul 26Release dateAA Intelligence Index 4.3.2K2 · JulK2 · SepK2.5K2.6K3

Benchmarks

all categories
Chat & Knowledge
MLCR-AA38.3#12
HLE fulllab43.5
MathArena Apexlab65.6
AA Cyber Index successeslab41
Coding
WebDev Arena1,655#13
SciCode59.5#10
DeepSWE (edition unstated)lab67.5
SciCode Verified pass@1 n=6lab90.3
Terminal-Bench 3.0lab17.7
ProgramBenchlab17.5
NL2Repo-Benchlab58
SWE Atlas QnAlab62
Surge Human Eval on Codelab3.6
Agents & Tool Use
Toolathlon-Verified76.5#2
Harvey LAB-AA 1.15.3#8
AutomationBenchlab58.3
CyberGymlab80
HLE with toolslab59.8
Automation-Benchlab46.7
Agents Last Examlab27.6
Finance Agent v2lab53.1
Harvey Legal Agent Benchmarklab12.9
CyberGym-E2E AAlab58
Cybenchlab90
Finch FinWorkBenchlab77.3
B3 Attack Resistancelab88.1
Harmful cyber request refusal meanlab93.7
AA Briefcase combined Elolab1,501
KORA aggregatelab1.6
Writing & Language
Vision & Documents
Chartography with toolslab68.1
GDP.pdf AAlab22
BabyVision with toolslab85.7
ZeroBench-main with toolslab41
Dense200 bounding-box detectionlab28.9
ChartQA Prolab61.7

Watch out 4

Sampling parameters are fixed›

temperature, top_p, n and penalty values are fixed; omit them from requests. Source ↗

No public image URLs›

Vision input rejects public image URLs; use base64 or ms:// file references in a content array. Source ↗

Web search is being updated›

Web search is not recommended for near-term production workflows; avoid depending on it in production. Source ↗

Thinking mode is always enabled›

K3 always has thinking enabled; control effort with the top-level reasoning_effort field using low, high or max. Source ↗

FAQ

How much does Kimi K3 cost?›

$3 per 1M input tokens and $15 per 1M output tokens; cached input $0.30 per 1M; cheapest via Relace at $0.80 / $3. A typical benchmark task costs about $2.00 at max effort.

Is Kimi K3 free to use?›

There is no free API; the cheapest paid price is $0.80 per 1M input tokens. The weights are open, so you can run it yourself.

How good is Kimi K3, and what is it best at?›

#19 of 334 in Chat & Knowledge, #34 of 132 in Coding, #23 of 133 in Agents & Tool Use, #17 of 195 in Writing & Language, #16 of 124 in Vision & Documents. Strongest at: Agents & work tasks, Reasoning, Science, Long context, Knowledge, Vision.

Is Kimi K3 better than Kimi K2.6?›

On AA Intelligence Index 4.3.2, Kimi K3 scores 43.6 vs 27 — higher. It is 150% more expensive per task.

How can I use Kimi K3?›

Through the API of AkashML, Alibaba, BaseTen, Chutes, DeepInfra and 13 more.

What is the context window of Kimi K3?›

1M tokens, with up to 944K output tokens.

When was Kimi K3 released? Is there a newer version?›

Released 2026-07-16. It is the current version in its line.

Is Kimi K3 open source?›

Yes, the weights are open (kimi-k3 licence).

Can I run Kimi K3 locally?›

The weights are open and can be self-hosted; hardware needs are not confirmed yet.

Can Kimi K3 read images?›

It accepts text and images, video as input.

What is Kimi K3?›

Kimi K3 is an open-weights language model from Moonshot AI, released Jul 2026, the successor to Kimi K2.6.

What are the best alternatives to Kimi K3?›

Claude Opus 5.5 (cheaper), MiMo v2.6 Pro (better).