Kimi K3
Moonshot · released 2026-03-15
Quality (AA Index)80
Input price$0.30
Output price$1.20
Context200K
Throughput150 tok/s
P50 latency0.8s
Kimi K3 vs Qwen 3 Max
Side-by-side pricing, capabilities, real-world cost across common scenarios, and our editorial pick.
Add a modelUp to 4 models can be compared
all prices in USD per 1M tokens
Qwen 3 Max
Alibaba · released 2026-03-01
Quality (AA Index)84
Input price$0.80
Output price$3.20
Context256K
Throughput130 tok/s
P50 latency0.9s
Links open in a new tab via our OpenRouter referral. Affiliate disclosure
Head-to-head specs
Green column = winner per metric| Metric | Kimi K3 | Qwen 3 Max | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
Input price /1M tokens | $0.30 | $0.80 | Kimi K3 −63% |
Output price /1M tokens | $1.20 | $3.20 | Kimi K3 −63% |
Context window max input length | 200K | 256K | Qwen 3 Max +1.3× |
AA Quality AA Intelligence Index (0–100) | 80 | 84 | Qwen 3 Max +4pt |
Arena Elo LMArena human-pref Elo (800–2000) | — | — | Tied |
Throughput tokens per second | 150 | 130 | Kimi K3 +15% |
P50 latency first token | 0.8s | 0.9s | Kimi K3 −11% |
Vision multimodal | — | ||
Function calling tool use | Tied | ||
Reasoning mode chain-of-thought | — | — | Tied |
Monthly cost across common scenarios
Default usage assumptions| Scenario | Kimi K3 | Qwen 3 Max |
|---|---|---|
customer support 1000K req · 600/180 tok | $396 | $1.1K |
chat with docs 300K req · 4000/300 tok | $468 | $1.2K |
code generation 500K req · 2000/500 tok | $600 | $1.6K |
voice assistant 600K req · 800/200 tok | $288 | $768 |
Our pick
For most workloads, choose Kimi K3.
- 63% cheaper input price, which compounds at scale
- 15% faster throughput — matters for streaming UX and voice agents
Choose Qwen 3 Max instead if: Tradeoffs for this pair have not yet been documented. The quality difference may be small enough that workload fit, integration cost, and team familiarity decide the choice.
Why pick? Use both with smart routing
Phase 2 · gateway with fallback chainSet Kimi K3 as primary, Qwen 3 Max as fallback. One key, one bill, automatic failover when Kimi K3 errors.
PHASE 2 PREVIEW · gateway not live yetThis endpoint does not exist yet. The gateway is in Phase 2 — what you see below is a design preview of the planned interface, not a live API. We will email subscribers when it launches.
Preview the planned API call
$ curl https://api.aipricly.com/v1/chat/completions \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $AIPC_KEY" \
-d '{
"routing": {
"primary": "moonshot/kimi-k3",
"fallback": ["alibaba/qwen-3-max"]
},
"messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "..."}]
}'