MoonshotAI Kimi K2.6 vs Qwen3.5 397B A17B
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
- Both cost about the same at a typical 3:1 input/output mix.
- Both accept prompts up to 262K tokens.
- Kimi K2.6 output costs $1.64 per 1M via Baidu, against the list price of $3.41.
- Qwen3.5 397B A17B output costs $2.34 per 1M via Alibaba, against the list price of $3.60.
- Kimi K2.6 is the newer model (released 2026-04-20).
| Kimi K2.6 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | MoonshotAI | Qwen |
| Released | 2026-04-20 | 2026-02-16 |
| Input / 1M | $0.65 | $0.50 |
| Output / 1M | $3.41 | $3.60 |
| Cached input / 1M | $0.15 | $0.30 |
| Blended / 1M (3:1) | $1.34 | $1.27 |
| Context | 262K | 262K |
| Max output | 236K | 236K |
| Accepts | text, image | text, image, video |
| Reasoning | Yes | Yes |
| Providers on OpenRouter | 17 | 10 |
| Cheapest provider, output | $1.64 | $2.34 |
| Best provider uptime, 24 h | 100% | 100% |
| 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
Qwen3.5 397B A17B
$84.00 per month$2.80 per day
Qwen3.5 397B A17B saves $6.15 a month on this workload.
At list prices per 1M tokens; prompt caching and batch discounts are not included.
Compare Kimi K2.6 with
Compare Qwen3.5 397B A17B with