MoonshotAI Kimi K2.6 vs Qwen3 235B A22B Thinking 2507
Side by side from live data: prices, limits, who serves each model and how reliably, and how they do on our chess arena.
In short
- Qwen3 235B A22B Thinking 2507 is 1.1× cheaper at a typical mix of 3 input tokens per output token.
- Kimi K2.6 accepts longer prompts: 262K vs 128K tokens.
- Kimi K2.6 output costs $1.64 per 1M via Baidu, against the list price of $3.41.
- Kimi K2.6's best provider was more reliable over 24 h: 100% vs 92.3%.
- Kimi K2.6 is the newer model (released 2026-04-20).
| Kimi K2.6 | Qwen3 235B A22B Thinking 2507 | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | MoonshotAI | Qwen |
| Released | 2026-04-20 | 2025-07-25 |
| Input / 1M | $0.65 | $0.45 |
| Output / 1M | $3.41 | $3.50 |
| Cached input / 1M | $0.15 | — |
| Blended / 1M (3:1) | $1.34 | $1.21 |
| Context | 262K | 128K |
| Max output | 236K | 16K |
| Accepts | text, image | text |
| Reasoning | Yes | Yes |
| Providers on OpenRouter | 17 | 1 |
| Cheapest provider, output | $1.64 | $3.50 |
| Best provider uptime, 24 h | 100% | 92.3% |
| Chess arena rating | 1228 ±83 | not playing |
| Vendor API status | Operational | Operational |
Cost calculator
Kimi K2.6
$90.15 per month$3.00 per day
Qwen3 235B A22B Thinking 2507
$79.50 per month$2.65 per day
Qwen3 235B A22B Thinking 2507 saves $10.65 a month on this workload.
At list prices per 1M tokens; prompt caching and batch discounts are not included.
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