ANTHROPIC VS MOONSHOT AI
Claude Opus 4.8 vs Kimi K2.6
Kimi K2.6 is about 5.8x cheaper than Claude Opus 4.8 on a blended 3:1 input:output rate — the same 10K-in/2K-out request costs $0.0175 vs $0.10. Claude Opus 4.8 has the larger context window (1,000,000 vs 262,144 tokens).
Pricing verified
API pricing per 1M tokens
| Model | Input / 1M tokens | Output / 1M tokens | Blended (3:1 mix) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus 4.8 | $5.00 | $25.00 | $10.00 |
| Kimi K2.6 | $0.95 | $4.00 | $1.713 |
Rates from official Anthropic pricing and official Moonshot AI pricing, checked 2026-08-11.
What a real workload costs
Example: one request with 10,000 input tokens and 2,000 output tokens, then that request at 100,000 runs per month.
| Model | Per request (10K in / 2K out) | Per month (100K requests) | Monthly delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus 4.8 | $0.10 | $10,000 | +$8,250 |
| Kimi K2.6 | $0.0175 | $1,750 | — |
Model your own prompt sizes and volumes in the token cost analyzer, or check caching savings with the prompt caching calculator.
Specs side by side
| Spec | Claude Opus 4.8 | Kimi K2.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Moonshot AI |
| Context window | 1,000,000 tokens | 262,144 tokens |
| Model class | Reasoning | General text |
| Tokenizer | Proprietary (counts estimated) | Proprietary (counts estimated) |
Count tokens for each model on its own page: Claude Opus 4.8 token counter and Kimi K2.6 token counter. All Anthropic models are on the Claude Token Counter. All Moonshot AI models are on the Kimi Token Counter.
FAQ
Claude Opus 4.8 vs Kimi K2.6 FAQ
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.8 or Kimi K2.6?
Kimi K2.6 is cheaper. At rates checked 2026-08-11, Claude Opus 4.8 costs $5.00 input / $25.00 output per 1M tokens, while Kimi K2.6 costs $0.95 input / $4.00 output — about a 5.8x difference on a typical 3:1 input-heavy workload.
How much does a real request cost on Claude Opus 4.8 vs Kimi K2.6?
A request with 10,000 input tokens and 2,000 output tokens costs about $0.10 on Claude Opus 4.8 and $0.0175 on Kimi K2.6. At 100,000 such requests per month that is $10,000 vs $1,750 — a difference of $8,250 per month.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Opus 4.8 or Kimi K2.6?
Claude Opus 4.8. It supports 1,000,000 tokens of context versus 262,144 tokens — roughly 750,000 English words in one request.
Do Claude Opus 4.8 and Kimi K2.6 count tokens the same way?
Not exactly. Claude Opus 4.8 uses a proprietary tokenizer (counts are estimates) and Kimi K2.6 uses a proprietary tokenizer (counts are estimates). The same prompt will tokenize differently, which shifts effective cost per word.