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: 2026-09-28.
Kimi K3 pricing (Moonshot)
- Input: $3.00 per 1M tokens
- Output: $15.00 per 1M tokens
- Batch API (input/output): $2.28 / $11.40
- Prompt-cache read: $0.30
- Context window: 1M
- Arena ELO: 1488 (as of 2026-09-25)
- 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: 1491 (as of 2026-09-25)
- Full Claude Opus 5 pricing page
Cost per 1,000 requests by business use case
List price vs after discounts (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 price | Kimi K3 after discounts | Claude Opus 5 list price | Claude Opus 5 after discounts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Support Ticket | 1,500 / 500 | $12.00 | $9.57 | $20.00 | $16.18 |
| Knowledge Q&A | 2,000 / 800 | $18.00 | $14.22 | $30.00 | $24.05 |
| Meeting Summary | 10,000 / 1,200 | $48.00 | $34.50 | $80.00 | $38.75 |
| Marketing Content | 2,500 / 1,800 | $34.50 | $33.15 | $57.50 | $55.37 |
| Coding Task | 3,000 / 2,000 | $39.00 | $34.95 | $65.00 | $58.63 |
| Invoice Processing | 1,500 / 600 | $13.50 | $9.37 | $22.50 | $10.69 |
| Call Summary | 2,000 / 700 | $16.50 | $12.14 | $27.50 | $13.50 |
| Agent Workflow | 6,000 / 3,000 | $63.00 | $51.66 | $105.00 | $87.15 |
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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.