The Known Good Updated 4 Sep 2026 Subscribe
Moonshot AI ·Open weights (unrestricted) ·Released April 2026·Tracked since 25 Jul 2026

MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 — quality, speed & price analysis

Compare with another model Provider benchmarks Data sources
Quality
#8 of 65
92based on 3 of 7 evaluations
Known Good Index
Speed
#154 of 338
52.1
Output tokens per second
Price
#290 of 442
$1.71
Blended per 1M tokens
In $0.95 · Out $4.00
Cache hit price
#211 of 324
$0.16
per 1M tokens (−83%)
Context
#264 of 476
262k
tokens (~400 pages)
Summary

MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 is in the top quarter of the models we track for quality, and inexpensive for its standing, with mid-range throughput. It accepts text, image input, outputs text, and supports a 262k-token context window.

It scores 92 on the Known Good Index, well above the tracked average of 65, from 3 of the seven component evaluations. Measured against the tracked average, its strongest result is Mock AIME 2024–25 (96 against 54) and its weakest is SWE-bench Verified (77 against 71).

Pricing is $0.95 per 1M input tokens (below the $2.07 average) and $4.00 per 1M output (below the $9.51 average). Cached input reads at $0.16 per 1M, a 83% discount on its input price. At 52 tokens per second it sits in the upper middle of the tracked range.

Generated from tracked data on 4 Sep 2026 · how these comparisons are computed →

Technical specifications
ReasoningYes
Input modalitytext, image
Output modalitytext
Context window262,144 tokens
Max output235,929 tokens
WeightsOpen weights · Open weights (unrestricted)
Knowledge cutoffJanuary 2025
Tool callingYes
Providers23 hosts · compare →
Highlights — where MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 sits
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Models shown

Quality

How MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 compares against every tracked model

Known Good IndexCodingMathematicsReasoning
Known Good Index

Composite of GPQA Diamond, Mock AIME 2024–25, MATH Level 5, SWE-bench Verified, LiveBench, Humanity's Last Exam and Terminal-Bench, normalised 0–100. Scores are ingested from Epoch AI; we do not run these evaluations.

💡 A lightbulb marks a model its provider publishes as a reasoning model
The Known Good

Quality Breakdown

MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 on each evaluation feeding the index, against the tracked average

Evaluation scores

Bar = MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 · grey marker = average across tracked models · scores ingested from Epoch AI

GPQA Diamond91 / 64
Mock AIME 2024–2596 / 54
SWE-bench Verified77 / 71
The Known Good

Arena Elo

Human preference rating from blind pairwise votes

Text Arena

Elo from blind pairwise votes, ingested from Arena

1455
Elo · 95% CI ±5
#34
of 406 ranked models
38k
votes counted
1461
style-controlled (#48)

Ingested 4 Sep 2026.

The Known Good

Price & Cost

Published API pricing by token type

BlendedInput vs outputQuality per dollar
Blended Price

USD per 1M tokens at a 3:1 input:output blend. Live from OpenRouter, cross-checked against models.dev. Lower is better. Ranked against the 442 models priced above zero, which is the population the chart draws; excludes 29 published at no cost (free and promotional tiers).

The Known Good
We publish blended price rather than cost-per-task. Cost-per-task requires token counts from an evaluation suite we do not run. Blended price is computed from published rates and is fully reproducible — see the pricing methodology.

Context Window

Maximum input tokens accepted

Context windowMax output tokens
Context Window

Maximum input context from provider metadata via models.dev and OpenRouter. Higher is better.

The Known Good

Speed

Mean output throughput across hosting providers, over successful measurements from the last 48 hours

Output speedBy provider
Output Speed

Mean output tokens per second across all tracked providers, over successful measurements from the last 48 hours. Derived from OpenRouter endpoint telemetry. Higher is better.

The Known Good

Latency

Time to first token, mean across providers over successful measurements from the last 48 hours

Latency (TTFT)

Seconds to first streamed chunk, mean across tracked providers over successful measurements from the last 48 hours. Derived from OpenRouter endpoint telemetry. Lower is better.

The Known Good

Providers

Hosts serving MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6, with their own price and speed

23 providers
Full provider benchmarks →
ProviderInput $/MOutput $/M BlendedSpeedTTFTContext
CoreWeave $0.65 $3.41 $1.34 140 0.5s 262k
Together $1.20 $4.50 $2.02 119 0.4s 262k
ModelRun $0.70 $3.40 $1.38 103 0.3s 262k
Parasail $0.75 $3.50 $1.44 78 0.4s 262k
Decart $0.52 $2.45 $1.00 65 0.5s 262k
Phala $1.09 $4.60 $1.97 57 1.1s 262k
DigitalOcean $0.95 $4.00 $1.71 41 0.5s 262k
Cloudflare $0.95 $4.00 $1.71 39 1.0s 262k
Fireworks $0.95 $4.00 $1.71 38 1.1s 262k
Inceptron $0.52 $3.39 $1.24 38 1.1s 262k
Sail Research $1.00 $4.00 $1.75 33 0.4s 262k
StreamLake $0.60 $2.52 $1.08 33 2.5s 256k
Novita $0.80 $3.40 $1.45 28 1.5s 262k
Baidu · first party $0.95 $4.00 $1.71 26 0.7s 262k
Moonshot AI · first party $0.95 $4.00 $1.71 26 2.0s 262k
Chutes $0.58 $3.40 $1.28 23 3.5s 262k
SiliconFlow $0.77 $3.40 $1.43 23 1.2s 262k
AtlasCloud $0.95 $4.00 $1.71 22 2.6s 262k
GMICloud $0.85 $3.60 $1.54 10 4.4s 262k
Crusoe $0.70 $3.50 $1.40 9 2.8s 262k
Venice $0.75 $3.50 $1.44 8 2.0s 256k
DeepInfra $0.75 $3.50 $1.44 7 1.8s 262k
BaseTen $0.95 $4.00 $1.71 262k

Per-host pricing and telemetry from OpenRouter. Speed is output tokens per second; TTFT is time to first token.

The Known Good

History

How price and quality have moved since we began tracking this model

Quality & price over time

Since 25 Jul 2026

Known Good Index 92 · based on 3 of 7 evaluations
Blended price $1.71 per 1M · observed 4 Sep 2026
Output speed 52 tok/s · observed 4 Sep 2026
Time to first token 1.8s
24 Aug 2026 · price change
MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 price up 75%
Blended 3:1 price moved from $0.98 to $1.71 per 1M tokens (OpenRouter).
23 Aug 2026 · price change
MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 price down 43%
Blended 3:1 price moved from $1.71 to $0.98 per 1M tokens (OpenRouter).
23 Aug 2026 · price change
MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 price up 75%
Blended 3:1 price moved from $0.98 to $1.71 per 1M tokens (OpenRouter).
21 Aug 2026 · price change
MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 price down 38%
Blended 3:1 price moved from $1.70 to $1.04 per 1M tokens (OpenRouter).
21 Aug 2026 · price change
MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 price up 75%
Blended 3:1 price moved from $0.98 to $1.71 per 1M tokens (OpenRouter).
20 Aug 2026 · price change
MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 price down 38%
Blended 3:1 price moved from $1.70 to $1.04 per 1M tokens (OpenRouter).
20 Aug 2026 · price change
MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 price up 75%
Blended 3:1 price moved from $0.98 to $1.71 per 1M tokens (OpenRouter).
19 Aug 2026 · price change
MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 price down 13%
Blended 3:1 price moved from $1.16 to $1.01 per 1M tokens (OpenRouter).
19 Aug 2026 · price change
MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 price down 32%
Blended 3:1 price moved from $1.71 to $1.16 per 1M tokens (OpenRouter).
The Known Good

Comparisons

Head-to-head pages pairing MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 with other tracked models

Sources for this page
Pricing & providers — OpenRouter Metadata — models.dev Benchmarks — Epoch AI (CC-BY 4.0)Elo — Arena Full attribution →