Kimi K2 0905 API pricing
Moonshot · Mid-range price tier · Modified MIT · released 2025-09. Prices in USD per 1 million tokens. Data snapshot: 2026-11-12.
A support ticket workload of 100K requests a month costs $215.00 on Kimi K2 0905; the next cheaper model in the Mid-range price tier for this workload, Mistral Large 4, does it for $210.00. Kimi K2 0905 has held the same list price since 2026-08-15 and is the 25th cheapest of 113 models in the Mid-range price tier. Only one host, Novita, sells it, so there is no second price to shop. It is rated a stable release but does not meet all four criteria of the FinOps Friendly badge.
- Input: $0.60 per 1M tokens
- Output: $2.50 per 1M tokens
- Batch API (in/out): Not published
- Prompt-cache read: Not published
- Context window: 262K tokens
- Arena ELO: 1380 as of 2026-11-08
Market position
On blended price ($1.93 per 1M tokens at 30% input, 70% output) it is cheaper than 78% of models in the Mid-range price tier: 25th cheapest of 113, tied with one other. Across every price tier it is cheaper than 39% of priced text models in the catalogue: 185th cheapest of 303, tied with one other. Its Arena ELO of 1380 ranks 110th of the 160 models that carry one, above 31% of them. With an Arena score of 1380, Kimi K2 0905 sits below OptimNow's lowest working quality threshold, Standard (Arena 1420+), so the quality-bar method would not shortlist it for any of the 8 use cases the table prices. Each threshold is a distance below the best ranked model, which scores 1530 on Arena scores as of 8 Nov 2026.
Licence, size and capabilities
Kimi K2 0905 is open weights, which is not the same as open source: the weights are published, but under Modified MIT, a licence that restricts some uses. Read it before self-hosting commercially. Its published size is 1T parameters. Listed capabilities: Text, Agents. Filling its 262K context window once costs $0.1572 in input tokens at list price.
Pricing by host
A host is a company that runs the model and sells it by the token: the model maker, a cloud platform like Amazon Bedrock, Azure or Vertex, or an independent host. One model, several hosts, and often several prices. This model is sold by 1 host. The price we quote elsewhere on this page is marked. We quote one host's rate so that models stay comparable; it is not a recommendation to buy there.
Novita is the only host with a published rate, $0.60 input / $2.50 output per 1M tokens, which is the price we quote. It serves a quantized fp8 build, which is not the same product as the full-precision model.
| Host | Input $/1M | Output $/1M | Precision |
|---|---|---|---|
| Novita (price we quote) | $0.60 | $2.50 | fp8 |
List prices as published on 2026-11-12, via OpenRouter. Negotiated rates, committed-use discounts and provisioned capacity are not shown.
Monthly cost at 100K requests, by business use case
From the after-discounts figure (prompt caching on the cached input share, batch API for async workloads, only where Moonshot publishes those rates), which assumes you implement both, to the list price. One figure means no discount is published.
| Use case | Tokens (in/out) | Monthly (after discounts – list) |
|---|---|---|
| Support Ticket | 1,500 / 500 | $215 |
| Knowledge Q&A | 2,000 / 800 | $320 |
| Meeting Summary | 10,000 / 1,200 | $900 |
| Marketing Content | 2,500 / 1,800 | $600 |
| Coding Task | 3,000 / 2,000 | $680 |
| Invoice Processing | 1,500 / 600 | $240 |
| Call Summary | 2,000 / 700 | $295 |
| Agent Workflow | 6,000 / 3,000 | $1.1K |
Price history
Kimi K2 0905 has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $0.60 input / $2.50 output per 1M tokens. No list price change since tracking began on 2026-08-15. Last checked against the 2026-11-12 snapshot.
Alternatives to Kimi K2 0905
3 of the 4 comparable models below cost less than Kimi K2 0905: GPT-5 Mini undercuts it by 24%, for 6 Arena points less.
- Next cheaper model in the Mid-range price tier: Seed 2.1 Turbo (ByteDance) at $1.90 blended, 2% less.
- Next more expensive: Grok 4.20 (xAI) at $2.125 blended, 10% more.
The nearest models in the Mid-range price tier on Arena ELO, each with its blended price and score difference against Kimi K2 0905.
- GPT-4.1 (OpenAI): $2.00 in / $8.00 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1383 (221% more expensive, 3 ELO points higher)
- GPT-5 Mini (OpenAI): $0.25 in / $2.00 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1374 (24% cheaper, 6 ELO points lower)
- Kimi K2 0711 (Moonshot): $0.57 in / $2.30 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1371 (8% cheaper, 9 ELO points lower)
- Mistral Medium 3 (Mistral): $0.40 in / $2.00 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1370 (21% cheaper, 10 ELO points lower)
- Cheapest within 15 Arena points: Qwen3 30B A3B Instruct 2507 (Alibaba), 88% cheaper, 4 ELO points higher, out of 16 models in that band.
- Highest Arena ELO within 20% of this price: DeepSeek V4 Pro 0423 (DeepSeek), 16% cheaper, 71 ELO points higher, out of 17 models in that price band.
Other models from Moonshot
Moonshot has 7 other models in the catalogue. Prices per 1M tokens, input then output.
- Kimi K2 0711: $0.57 / $2.30
- Kimi K2 Thinking: $0.60 / $2.50
- Kimi K2.5: $0.532 / $3.325
- Kimi K2.6: $0.65 / $3.41
- Kimi K2.7 Code: $0.60 / $3.50
- Kimi K3.1 Pro: $0.2375 / $8.4085
- Kimi K3: $0.192 / $16.00
All 8 Moonshot models and prices
Common questions about Kimi K2 0905 pricing
- How much does Kimi K2 0905 cost?
- Kimi K2 0905 costs $0.60 per 1M input tokens and $2.50 per 1M output tokens at Novita, the host whose rate we quote. Novita serves a quantized fp8 build, which is not the same product as the full-precision model. Prices as listed on 2026-11-12.
- Which host is cheapest for Kimi K2 0905?
- Novita is the only host with a published rate, $0.60 input / $2.50 output per 1M tokens, which is the price we quote. It serves a quantized fp8 build, which is not the same product as the full-precision model. Host rates as listed on 2026-11-12.
- Does Kimi K2 0905 offer batch or cached pricing?
- No. Neither a batch rate nor a prompt-cache rate is published for Kimi K2 0905 as of 2026-11-12.
- What would Kimi K2 0905 cost per month?
- With the Support Ticket profile (1,500 input and 500 output tokens per request), 100,000 requests a month cost about $215 on Kimi K2 0905 at the list price quoted on 2026-11-12.
- Can Kimi K2 0905 be self-hosted?
- Yes, within the terms of its licence. Kimi K2 0905 is open weights, which is not the same as open source: the weights are published, but under Modified MIT, a licence that restricts some uses. Read it before self-hosting commercially.
- Has the price of Kimi K2 0905 changed?
- Kimi K2 0905 has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $0.60 input / $2.50 output per 1M tokens. No list price change since tracking began on 2026-08-15. Last checked against the 2026-11-12 snapshot.
Its weights are published, which changes what you may run yourself: the cost gap between open weights and proprietary APIs.
These are list prices. Your real cost also depends on caching and batching, negotiated discounts, marketplace agreements, and the contracts you already have. OptimNow audits exactly that.
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