Kimi K3 vs Claude Opus 5: API Pricing Comparison
Moonshot Kimi K3 vs Anthropic Claude Opus 5 — token prices, batch and cache rates, Arena ELO, and cost per request for 8 business use cases. Prices in USD per 1 million tokens. Data snapshot: 2026-08-14.
Kimi K3 pricing (Moonshot)
- Input: $3.00 per 1M tokens
- Output: $15.00 per 1M tokens
- Batch API (input/output): not published
- Prompt-cache read: $0.30
- Context window: 1M
- Arena ELO: 1445 (as of 2026-08-13)
- Full Kimi K3 pricing page
Claude Opus 5 pricing (Anthropic)
- Input: $5.00 per 1M tokens
- Output: $25.00 per 1M tokens
- Batch API (input/output): $2.50 / $12.50
- Prompt-cache read: $0.50
- Context window: 1M
- Arena ELO: 1478 (as of 2026-08-13)
- Full Claude Opus 5 pricing page
Cost per request by business use case
List price vs optimized (prompt caching on the cached input share, batch API for async workloads — only where the provider publishes those rates).
| Use case | Tokens (in/out) | Kimi K3 list | Kimi K3 optimized | Claude Opus 5 list | Claude Opus 5 optimized |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Support Ticket | 1,500 / 500 | $0.012 | $0.0096 | $0.020 | $0.016 |
| Knowledge Q&A | 2,000 / 800 | $0.018 | $0.014 | $0.030 | $0.024 |
| Meeting Summary | 10,000 / 1,200 | $0.048 | $0.045 | $0.080 | $0.038 |
| Marketing Content | 2,500 / 1,800 | $0.035 | $0.033 | $0.057 | $0.055 |
| Coding Task | 3,000 / 2,000 | $0.039 | $0.035 | $0.065 | $0.058 |
| Invoice Processing | 1,500 / 600 | $0.013 | $0.012 | $0.022 | $0.010 |
| Call Summary | 2,000 / 700 | $0.017 | $0.016 | $0.027 | $0.013 |
| Agent Workflow | 6,000 / 3,000 | $0.063 | $0.052 | $0.105 | $0.086 |
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These are list prices — real cost also depends on caching, batching, negotiated discounts, marketplace agreements, and existing contracts. Get a FinOps review from OptimNow or compare all models.