Kimi K3 (low) API Provider Benchmarking & Analysis
This analysis is intended to support you in choosing the best API provider of Kimi K3 (low) for your use-case.
Fastest
Nebius
Baseten
DatabricksOutput speed
Total 4 providers
Lowest Latency
NebiusBasetenDatabricksTime to first answer token
Total 4 providers
Lowest Price
KimiBasetenDatabricksNebiusBlended price (per 1M tokens)
Total 4 providers
Kimi K3 (low) is available through 4 API providers, each offering different performance characteristics and pricing. Below is a comparison of the key metrics across providers.
- For output speed, the top providers are Nebius (199.4 t/s), Baseten (157.2 t/s), and Databricks (94.5 t/s).
- For latency, Nebius (11.44s), Baseten (13.71s), and Databricks (22.24s) offer the lowest time to first answer token.
- For pricing, Kimi (2.31), Baseten (2.31), and Databricks (2.31) offer the lowest blended prices per 1M tokens.
- Nebius offers the best performance with both the highest speed and lowest latency. For cost optimization, Kimi provides the most competitive pricing.
Highlights
Update: Default performance benchmarking workload has updated to 10k input tokens to better reflect production use cases. You can still select different workloads above.
Pricing
Pricing: Cache Hit, Input, and Output
Pricing: Blended Price
Pricing: Cache Discount
Output Speed vs. Price
Speed
Measured by Output Speed (tokens per second)
Output Speed: Kimi K3 (low)
Latency vs. Output Speed
Latency
Measured by Time (seconds) to First Token
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
Key Comparison Metrics & API Features
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about Kimi K3 (low) providers
Kimi K3 (low) is available through 4 API providers: Kimi, Baseten, Databricks, and Nebius. Each provider offers different performance characteristics and pricing.
Kimi K3 (low) is currently available through 4 API providers that we benchmark and track.
The fastest providers for Kimi K3 (low) by output speed are Nebius (199.4 t/s), Baseten (157.2 t/s), and Databricks (94.5 t/s). Output speed measures how quickly tokens are generated after the model starts responding.
The providers with the lowest time to first answer token for Kimi K3 (low) are Nebius (11.44s), Baseten (13.71s), and Databricks (22.24s). Lower latency means faster initial response time.
The most affordable providers for Kimi K3 (low) by blended price are Kimi ($2.31 per 1M tokens), Baseten ($2.31 per 1M tokens), and Databricks ($2.31 per 1M tokens). Blended price uses a 7:2:1 cache hit/input/output token ratio.
The providers with the lowest input token pricing for Kimi K3 (low) are Kimi ($3.00 per 1M input tokens), Baseten ($3.00 per 1M input tokens), and Databricks ($3.00 per 1M input tokens).
The providers with the lowest output token pricing for Kimi K3 (low) are Kimi ($15.00 per 1M output tokens), Baseten ($15.00 per 1M output tokens), and Databricks ($15.00 per 1M output tokens).
Output speed for Kimi K3 (low) varies significantly across providers. Nebius is the fastest at 199.4 t/s, which is 2.1x faster than Databricks at 94.5 t/s.
All 4 providers of Kimi K3 (low) support JSON mode for structured output.
All 4 providers of Kimi K3 (low) support function calling (tool use).
When choosing a provider for Kimi K3 (low), consider: output speed (for throughput-intensive tasks), latency (for interactive applications requiring quick first responses), pricing (for cost-sensitive workloads), and API features like JSON mode or function calling.
Yes, provider performance can vary over time due to infrastructure changes, load balancing, and updates. We continuously benchmark all providers and display historical performance trends in the "Over Time" charts.
For information about Kimi K3 (low)'s intelligence, capabilities, modalities, and how it compares to other models, see the model overview page. View model overview