Kimi vs Claude: coding, reasoning and price

Kimi K3 saves 25% per example request on Novita AI ($0.045 vs $0.060 for Claude Opus 5.5), but Claude leads Terminal-Bench 4.0 by 47.0 pp, HLE by 14.5 pp and streams 1.8× faster (96.8 vs 52.7 tokens/s); choose Kimi when that saving outweighs those gaps.

Updated · 4 sources · Methodology

DimensionWinnerMarginEvidence
Coding benchmarkClaude Opus 5.547.0 ppTerminal-Bench 4.0: Claude 59.6% vs Kimi K3 12.6%12
Reasoning benchmarkClaude Opus 5.514.5 ppHLE: Claude 61.4% vs Kimi K3 46.9%12
Output speed (tokens/s)Claude Opus 5.544.1 tokens/sClaude 96.8 vs Kimi K3 52.7 tokens/s12
Estimated request costKimi K3$0.015Kimi K3 $0.045 vs Claude $0.06034

Coding and reasoning benchmarks

MetricKimi K3 (Max)Claude Opus 5.5 (Max)
AA · Terminal-Bench 4.01212.6%59.6%
AA · HLE1246.9%61.4%
AA · SciCode1259.5%66.9%

Performance

MetricKimi K3 (Max)Claude Opus 5.5 (Max)
Output speed (tokens/s)1252.796.8
Time to first answer token (s)1240.9676.8

Prices and request cost

MetricKimi K3Claude Opus 5.5
Input / 1M tokens34$3.00$4.00
Output / 1M tokens34$15.00$20.00
Context window (tokens)341,048,5761,000,000
Cost example: 10,000 input + 1,000 billed output tokens
Kimi K3$0.045
Claude Opus 5.5$0.060

When each option fits

Kimi K3

  • Kimi K3’s Novita AI rates of $3.00/$15.00 per 1M tokens are exactly 75% of Claude’s $4.00/$20.00, so the saving is 25% per request rather than an order of magnitude.34
  • Kimi K3’s closest benchmark to Claude is SciCode, 59.5% versus 66.9% (7.4 pp); its largest gap is agentic coding, 12.6% versus 59.6% on Terminal-Bench 4.0 (47.0 pp).12
  • For shorter waits before the answer starts, Kimi K3’s AA median time to first answer token is 40.9 s versus Claude’s 676.8 s.12

Claude Opus 5.5

  • For reasoning-heavy tasks, Claude leads HLE by 14.5 pp, 61.4% versus 46.9%.12
  • For long outputs, Claude’s AA output speed of 96.8 tokens/s is 1.8× Kimi K3’s 52.7 tokens/s.12
  • At $0.060 versus $0.045 per example request, Claude costs one-third more while leading every benchmark row and output speed on this page.1234

Methodology and sources

AA uses the named reasoning configurations; Claude Opus 5.5 is Max with default fallback.123

Coding and reasoning rows use the same AA evaluation versions: Terminal-Bench 4.0, HLE and SciCode. The available official reports do not provide this exact current model pair under a common setup. AA output speed and time to first answer token are model references, not Novita endpoint guarantees; the latter is AA’s median for its 10,000-input-token prompt and includes reasoning for both models. Prices and context windows are Novita AI’s listed values for Kimi K3 and Anthropic’s for Claude Opus 5.5; the uncached example uses 10,000 input and 1,000 billed output tokens.

Costs are estimates at listed rates for uncached synchronous requests, not measured invoices; billed output includes reasoning. Tax, retries, discounts and negotiated capacity are excluded. Novita AI publishes this page using public sources, without a private workload benchmark.

  1. Artificial Analysis · Kimi K3 (Max)
  2. Artificial Analysis · Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback)
  3. Anthropic · Opus 5.5 pricing
  4. Novita AI · Kimi K3 pricing

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