Moonshot AI released Kimi K3 on July 16, 2026 — a 2.8-trillion-parameter mixture-of-experts flagship with a 1M-token context window, priced at $3 per million input tokens ($0.30 cached) and $15 per million output. Third-party scoring puts it third on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, behind only Claude Fable 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol — which makes K3 the strongest model you will shortly be able to download, ahead of closed models like Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5 on that index. One precision the launch coverage keeps blurring: the weights are not out yet. Moonshot has committed to an open-weight release by July 27; as of July 17 there is no official Hugging Face repository and no license text.
Here is what shipped, what the numbers actually say, and what it costs in practice — as of July 17, 2026.
What shipped
| Kimi K3 | |
|---|---|
| Released | July 16, 2026 (API + kimi.com) |
| Architecture | 2.8T-parameter MoE; community reporting says 16 of 896 experts active per token (official model card pending) |
| Context | 1M tokens (1,048,576), flat pricing across the window |
| Price / 1M | $3.00 input · $0.30 cached input · $15.00 output |
| Reasoning | Single effort level ("max") — no low/medium dial |
| Weights | Committed by July 27, 2026; not yet downloadable. License unannounced; every prior K-series flagship shipped Modified-MIT |
Two details in that table deserve a second look. The flat 1M-context pricing is unusual — most long-context models tier their rates as the window fills. And the single "max" reasoning level tells you what this model is for: Moonshot is not selling you a dial, it is selling you the ceiling.
The benchmarks, sorted by who is reporting them
From Moonshot's launch materials (vendor numbers, pending independent runs):
| Benchmark | K3 score | Context |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 93.5% | Strongest open-weight result published at launch |
| BrowseComp | 91.2% | Best published score, period |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 88.3% | Behind GPT-5.6 Sol (88.8) — close |
| MCP Atlas | 84.2% | Tool-use / MCP orchestration |
| Humanity's Last Exam (with tools) | 56.0% | — |
Moonshot's own framing is unusually candid: in internal evaluations K3 sits behind only Claude Fable 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol.
From third parties (independent, launch-week):
- Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: #3 overall, in the same band as Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5 — behind Fable 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol.
- AA long-horizon agentic Elo: 1547, behind only Fable 5.
- GDPval-AA v2 (real tasks across 44 occupations): 1687 — behind Fable 5 Max and GPT-5.6 Sol Max, ahead of Opus 4.8 Max at 1600.
- #1 on Frontend Code Arena, displacing Claude and GPT from the top slot.
- Simon Willison's launch-day hands-on: alt-text quality "very good," a "notable improvement" over prior Kimi models, output 21% more token-efficient than K2.6.
The pattern across every scorer is consistent, which is rare for a launch week: K3 slots in right below the two frontier leaders and above everything else — including the closed models it undercuts on price. The headline is not one benchmark; it is that an open-weight-committed model now sits at #3.
The honest cost math
The sticker says $3/$15. Two things move the real number.
Working against you: K3 is a reasoning model with one effort level, and it thinks hard. Simon Willison measured 13,241 reasoning tokens spent on a 3,417-token answer — a single illustrative SVG prompt cost him about $0.25. Output-heavy agentic work will burn more than the sticker suggests, because you pay $15 per million for the thinking too.
Working for you: cached input at $0.30 is a 90% discount for agent loops that re-read the same context, K3 emits ~21% fewer output tokens than K2.6 for equivalent answers, and the flat 1M window means long-context work carries no surcharge.
Where the sticker lands in the market:
| Model | Input / output per 1M | AA Index position |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Fable 5 | $10 / $50 | #1 |
| GPT-5.6 Sol | $5 / $30 | #2 |
| Kimi K3 | $3 / $15 | #3 |
| GPT-5.6 Terra | $2.50 / $15 | below K3 |
| GLM-5.2 | $1.40 / $4.40 | top open-weight coder |
| Kimi K2.6 | $0.95 / $4.00 | prior Moonshot flagship |
| DeepSeek V4-Pro | $0.435 / $0.87 | value tier |
K3 is the priciest model a Chinese lab has ever shipped — and still half of GPT-5.6 Sol and less than a third of Fable 5 for the tier directly above it. The Chinese lineup now runs from $0.14 (V4-Flash) to $3.00 (K3): a full price ladder where a year ago there was only a floor. The pricing calculator has K3 loaded if you want to run your own volumes.
Where K3 fits (and where it does not)
The benchmark shape — BrowseComp best-published, MCP Atlas, Terminal-Bench near Sol, long-horizon Elo behind only Fable 5 — describes an agent flagship: browsing, tool orchestration, long multi-step work. That is the job it was built for, and where the $15 output rate buys something the cheaper tier cannot do.
- Hardest agent workflows, browse- and tool-heavy — K3 is now the strongest option outside the two closed leaders, at a fraction of their price.
- Coding as the primary job — GLM-5.2 remains the value pick at $1.40/$4.40; K3's coding is strong but its premium is justified by agentic range, not per-dollar code quality. See the coding guide.
- Long-context volume work — Kimi K2.6 at $0.95/$4.00 still makes sense when you need the window but not the ceiling.
- Bulk and routine — DeepSeek V4-Flash, nothing has changed at the floor.
What is still open
Three things to watch before calling this settled. The weights: committed by July 27, license unannounced — Modified-MIT is the K-series precedent, not a promise. The vendor benchmarks: independent reruns of GPQA and BrowseComp will land within weeks. And the release-eve tracker has the full scoreboard of what the leaks got right (1M context: yes) and wrong (2.5T parameters: it is 2.8T).
Try the lineup it joins
Kimi K2.6 and K2.7-code run today on Turiloop behind one OpenAI-compatible key — pay-as-you-go, international card, no Chinese phone number. We list new models when their APIs stabilize, and K3 will slot in next to them; switching will be a model-id change, not a migration. One key, every Chinese model.
FAQ
What is Kimi K3? Moonshot AI's flagship model, released July 16, 2026: a 2.8-trillion-parameter mixture-of-experts with a 1M-token context, positioned #3 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index behind Claude Fable 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol.
Is Kimi K3 open source? Not yet. Moonshot has committed to releasing open weights by July 27, 2026. As of July 17 there is no official Hugging Face repository and no license text; prior K-series flagships used a Modified-MIT license.
How much does Kimi K3 cost? $3.00 per million input tokens ($0.30 on cache hits) and $15.00 per million output tokens, flat across the full 1M context. It is the most expensive Chinese-lab model to date — and roughly half the price of GPT-5.6 Sol, the model directly above it.
Is Kimi K3 better than GPT-5.6? Against the flagship Sol: no on aggregate — K3 ranks just below it on the AA index and Terminal-Bench (88.3 vs 88.8), at 60% of the input price and 50% of the output price. Against Terra ($2.50/$15): K3 costs nearly the same and scores higher on the same index.
Kimi K3 vs GLM-5.2 — which should I use? K3 for browse-heavy, tool-heavy, long-horizon agent work — that is where its best-published BrowseComp score and near-Fable long-horizon Elo live. GLM-5.2 for coding value: at $1.40/$4.40 it remains the strongest capability-per-dollar coder in the lineup.