ANTHROPIC VS MOONSHOT AI
Claude Opus 4.8 vs Kimi K2 Thinking
Kimi K2 Thinking is about 9.3x cheaper than Claude Opus 4.8 on a blended 3:1 input:output rate — the same 10K-in/2K-out request costs $0.011 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 Thinking | $0.60 | $2.50 | $1.075 |
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 | +$8,900 |
| Kimi K2 Thinking | $0.011 | $1,100 | — |
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 Thinking |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Moonshot AI |
| Context window | 1,000,000 tokens | 262,144 tokens |
| Model class | Reasoning | Reasoning |
| 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 Thinking 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 Thinking FAQ
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.8 or Kimi K2 Thinking?
Kimi K2 Thinking 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 Thinking costs $0.60 input / $2.50 output — about a 9.3x difference on a typical 3:1 input-heavy workload.
How much does a real request cost on Claude Opus 4.8 vs Kimi K2 Thinking?
A request with 10,000 input tokens and 2,000 output tokens costs about $0.10 on Claude Opus 4.8 and $0.011 on Kimi K2 Thinking. At 100,000 such requests per month that is $10,000 vs $1,100 — a difference of $8,900 per month.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Opus 4.8 or Kimi K2 Thinking?
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 Thinking count tokens the same way?
Not exactly. Claude Opus 4.8 uses a proprietary tokenizer (counts are estimates) and Kimi K2 Thinking uses a proprietary tokenizer (counts are estimates). The same prompt will tokenize differently, which shifts effective cost per word.