MODEL VERSIONS ON THIS PAGE HAVE MOVED — CHECKED 8 OCTOBER 2026
Current line, with published API pricing per million tokens:
●
OpenAI — GPT-6 Sol (paid ChatGPT), GPT-6 Luna ($0.10 / $0.50), GPT-6.1 Sol ($2.00 / $10.00), GPT-6 Astra
●
Anthropic — Claude Opus 5.5, Sonnet 5.5 ($2.00 / $10.00), Haiku 5.5 ($0.10 / $0.50 below 100K), Fable 5.1
●
xAI — Grok 4.3 ($1.25 / $2.50), Grok 4.7 ($2.00 / $6.00)
●
Google — Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite ($0.30 / $2.50), Gemini 3.8 Flash ($0.75 / $3.75 to 31 Dec), Gemini 4 Argon
The comparison below is kept because the reasoning still holds — how these tiers trade price against capability has not changed. The version numbers and prices have.
Current pricing table →
THE VERDICT
● Same price from today: $3 in, $15 out per million.
● Sonnet 5 for ecosystem, tooling depth and Claude Code bundled with a $20 plan.
● Kimi K3 for open weights, self-hosting and a free tier you can genuinely evaluate on.
● The hidden difference: Sonnet 5 got a tokenizer change today adding 10 to 35 percent more tokens on code.
Head to head
| Kimi K3 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
|---|
| API per 1M | $3 / $15 | $3 / $15 from today |
| Tokenizer change today | No | Yes — 10 to 35% more tokens on code |
| Weights | Modified MIT, downloadable | Closed |
| Free evaluation | Adagio — unlimited K2.6 chat | Claude Free, message-capped |
| Bundled coding tool | Kimi Code from $19 | Claude Code from $20 |
| Ecosystem | Narrower | Deep, wide tooling |
SAME RATE DOES NOT MEAN SAME BILL
Sonnet 5 changed tokenizer today. The same file now produces 10 to 35 percent more tokens than last week.
So on identical rate cards, an identical codebase costs more on Sonnet 5 than on K3 — which is a comparison nobody can make from a pricing page.
Which one
| If you are... | Pick |
|---|
| Building on a deep tooling ecosystem | Sonnet 5 |
| Needing to self-host for compliance | Kimi K3. Read the modified MIT terms first |
| Running heavy code workloads on API | Measure both. The tokenizer change makes the rate card misleading |
| Evaluating before committing | Kimi Adagio free. Unlimited chat, no credits drawn |
FAQ
Are they really the same price?
On the rate card, yes — both $3 and $15 per million from today. The effective cost differs because Sonnet 5 changed tokenizer, producing more tokens for the same input on code.
Can I download Kimi K3?
Yes, under a modified MIT licence. Modified matters, so read the terms rather than assuming standard MIT semantics.
Which is better at coding?
Claude Code ranks first among agent harnesses, which is a tooling advantage rather than purely a model one. On raw model comparison the gap is narrower than the ecosystem gap.