Kimi K3 (low) Intelligence, Performance & Price Analysis
Model summary
Intelligence
Speed
Price
Cache Hit Price
Verbosity
Kimi K3 (low) is amongst the leading models in intelligence, but particularly expensive when comparing to other open weight models of similar size. It's also notably slow, however highly concise. The model supports text and image input, outputs text, and has a 1M tokens context window.
Kimi K3 (low) scores 47 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, placing it well above average among comparable models (median: 25). When evaluating the Intelligence Index, it generated 8.6M tokens, which is very concise in comparison to the median of 99M.
Pricing for Kimi K3 (low) is $3.00 per 1M input tokens (expensive, median: $0.43) and $15.00 per 1M output tokens (expensive, median: $1.23). In total, it cost $283.30 to evaluate Kimi K3 (low) on the Intelligence Index.
At 33 tokens per second, Kimi K3 (low) is notably slow (60).
| Reasoning | Yes This page shows the reasoning version of this model. A non-reasoning variant may also exist. |
|---|---|
| Input modality | Supports: text and image |
| Output modality | Supports: text |
| Context window | 1M ~1573 A4 pages of size 12 Arial font |
| Total parameters | 2780B |
| Active parameters | 104B Number of parameters active per token during inference |
| License | Kimi K3 |
| Model weights | Hugging Face |
Metrics are compared against models of the same class:
- Non-reasoning models → compared only with other non-reasoning models
- Reasoning models → compared across both reasoning and non-reasoning
- Open weights models → compared only with other open weights models of the same size class:
- Tiny: ≤4B parameters
- Small: 4B–40B parameters
- Medium: 40B–150B parameters
- Large: >150B parameters
- Proprietary models → compared across proprietary and open weights models of the same price range, using a blended 3:1 input/output price ratio:
- <$0.15 per 1M tokens
- $0.15–$1 per 1M tokens
- >$1 per 1M tokens
Highlights
Intelligence
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index by Open Weights / Proprietary
Intelligence Evaluations
Agentic real-world work tasks, (Elo-500)/2000
Agentic tool use
Agentic coding & terminal use
Coding
Reasoning & knowledge
Scientific reasoning
Physics reasoning
Knowledge
1 - hallucination rate
Long context reasoning
Agentic knowledge work, Elo
Agentic SaaS workflows
Legal agentic work, criterion pass rate
Agentic business operations
Instruction following
Long-horizon agentic tasks
Kubernetes incident root-cause analysis
Visual reasoning
AA-Omniscience
AA-Omniscience Index
Openness Index
Artificial Analysis Openness Index: Score
Intelligence Index Comparisons
Intelligence Index vs. Cost per Intelligence Index Task
Token Use
Output Tokens per Intelligence Index Task
Cost
Cost per Intelligence Index Task
Cost to Run Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index
Pricing: Cache Hit, Input, and Output
Context Window
Context Window
Speed
Measured by Output Speed (tokens per second)
Output Speed
Time per Intelligence Index Task
Latency
Measured by Time (seconds) to First Token
Latency: Time To First Answer Token
End-to-End Response Time
Seconds to output 500 tokens, calculated based on time to first token, 'thinking' time for reasoning models, and output speed
End-to-End Response Time
Model Size (Open Weights Models Only)
Model Size: Total and Active Parameters
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about Kimi K3 (low)
Kimi K3 (low) was released on July 16, 2026.
Kimi K3 (low) was created by Kimi.
Kimi K3 (low) scores 47 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, placing it well above average among other open weight models of similar size (median: 25).
Kimi K3 (low) generates output at 33.4 tokens per second (based on Kimi's API), which is at the lower end compared to other open weight models of similar size (median: 60.2 t/s).
Kimi K3 (low) has a time to first token (TTFT) of 4.71s (based on Kimi's API), which is at the higher end compared to other open weight models of similar size (median: 1.88s).
Kimi K3 (low) costs $3.00 per 1M input tokens (at the higher end, median: $0.59) and $15.00 per 1M output tokens (at the higher end, median: $2.20), based on Kimi's API.
Kimi K3 (low) costs $3.00 per 1M input tokens and $15.00 per 1M output tokens (based on Kimi's API). For a blended rate (7:2:1 cache hit/input/output ratio), this is $2.31 per 1M tokens. Pricing may vary by provider. Compare provider pricing
When evaluated on the Intelligence Index, Kimi K3 (low) generated 8.6M output tokens, which is very competitive compared to other open weight models of similar size (median: 99M).
Yes, Kimi K3 (low) is a reasoning model. It uses extended thinking or chain-of-thought reasoning to work through complex problems before providing an answer.
Kimi K3 (low) supports text and image input.
Kimi K3 (low) supports text output.
Yes, Kimi K3 (low) supports image input and can analyze, describe, and answer questions about images.
Yes, Kimi K3 (low) is multimodal. It can process text and image input and generate text output.
Kimi K3 (low) has a context window of 1.0M tokens. This determines how much text and conversation history the model can process in a single request.
Yes, Kimi K3 (low) is open weights. The model weights are publicly available and can be downloaded for self-hosting.
Kimi K3 (low) has 2.8 trillion parameters (104 billion active).
Kimi K3 (low) is a Mixture of Experts (MoE) model with 2.8 trillion total parameters, but only 104 billion active parameters are used during inference.
Kimi K3 (low) is released under the Kimi K3 license. Commercial use requires a separate license agreement. View license
Kimi K3 (low) achieves a score of 47 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index. This composite benchmark evaluates models across reasoning, knowledge, mathematics, and coding.
Yes, Kimi K3 (low) is available via API through 1 provider. Compare API providers
Kimi K3 (low) is available through 1 API provider. Compare providers