Skip to main content
AI Choice Engine

Model comparison

Kimi K3 vs Xiaomi MiMo-V2.6-Pro

Moonshot AI against Xiaomi, compared on context, price, and verified benchmark results.

Catalog record checked September 26, 2026Individual provider fields may changeEvidence confidence: High — see receipts below

Moonshot AI

Kimi K3

Frontier · Open weights

vs

Xiaomi

Xiaomi MiMo-V2.6-Pro

Frontier · Open weights

AI model capability comparison
SpecificationKimi K3Xiaomi MiMo-V2.6-Pro
ProviderMoonshot AIXiaomi
TierFrontierFrontier
Context window1.05M1.05M
Max output1.05MNot verifiedUnverified
Input / 1M tokens$3Winner: $0.435
Output / 1M tokens$15Winner: $0.87
WeightsOpenOpen
Parameters2.8T (open-weight MoE)1.02T total / 42B active (MoE)
Reasoning levelslow, high, maxNot verifiedUnverified
Modalitiestext, image, videotext, image, video, audio
LicenseNot disclosedUnverifiedMIT
API model idkimi-k3mimo-v2.6-pro
ReleasedJuly 16, 2026September 21, 2026
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index [max] (2026-09-26)43.6Not verifiedUnverified
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (2026-09-26)Not verifiedUnverified46.3
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (2026-07-27)88.3Winner: 89.9
GPQA Diamond (2026-07-27)93.5Not verifiedUnverified
Humanity's Last Exam (2026-07-27)56Not verifiedUnverified
SWE-bench Verified (2026-09-01)93.4Not verifiedUnverified
DeepSWE 1.1 (2026-09-21)Not verifiedUnverified71.9

Prices are USD per million tokens at standard rates, excluding batch and caching discounts. Bold indicates the better figure where one is objectively better. Values we could not confirm from the provider are shown as “Not verified” rather than estimated.

Benchmark receipts

Where each score comes from, and how far it can be compared across models.

Pricing tiers

Kimi K3: $3/$15 per MTok; cached input $0.30/MTok. max_completion_tokens can be set up to 1,048,576 (default 131,072). Open-weight under the custom Kimi K3 License (not a standard open-source licence). 2.8T MoE with native vision.

Xiaomi MiMo-V2.6-Pro: $0.435/$0.87 per MTok (cache hit $0.0036; cache writes free for a limited time) — unchanged from V2.5-Pro. UltraSpeed mode (mimo-v2.6-pro-ultraspeed) costs $4.35/$8.70. Open weights (MIT) as MiMo-V2.6-Pro-RL.

FrontierOpen weightsRecord checked September 26, 2026

Kimi K3

Kimi K3 is Moonshot AI's open-weight frontier model — 2.8T MoE, 1M context, tied near the top of open-weight leaderboards.

Best for

  • Open-weight frontier work
  • Long-context
  • Multimodal

Watch out

Self-hosting needs large clusters; hosted rates vary.

FrontierOpen weightsRecord checked September 26, 2026

Xiaomi MiMo-V2.6-Pro

MiMo-V2.6-Pro is Xiaomi's open-weight (MIT) 1.02T MoE with omni-modal input and a 1M context — the top open-weight model on the Artificial Analysis index at under $1 per million output tokens.

Best for

  • Open-weight frontier work
  • Omni-modal input
  • Cheap long-context API

Watch out

Max output is not verified; vendor benchmark claims (DeepSWE 71.9) are not yet independently reproduced.

When the cheaper one wins

Xiaomi MiMo-V2.6-Pro is cheaper on output at $0.87 per million tokens against $15 for Kimi K3 — about 17×. Use the cheaper tier for classification, extraction, summarisation, and any task where the expensive model’s extra score does not change the accepted output. The expensive one only pays if your hardest task actually fails on the cheap tier. These are standard-tier API rates, excluding batch and cache discounts.

Run the model picker

Evidence confidence: High

How strong and complete the evidence behind this comparison is — not a prediction of which model is better.

  • Pricing verified on both sides — Input and output rates are verified for both models.
  • 3/5 core specs verified on both sides — Not published for at least one side: max output, reasoning levels.
  • 2 shared named benchmarks with differing scores — Measured on: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, Terminal-Bench 2.1.
  • Verified within the last 90 days — Newest catalog check was 2 days ago.
  • Both models carry source citations — Each side has at least two catalog sources on record.

Source receipts

Each catalog figure was checked against the provider or an independent second source on the date shown.

Related comparisons

Diving deeper on one model? Kimi K3 · Xiaomi MiMo-V2.6-Pro

Common questions

Kimi K3 vs Xiaomi MiMo-V2.6-Pro

Answered from the verified figures on this page rather than general guidance.

Is Kimi K3 or Xiaomi MiMo-V2.6-Pro cheaper for input?
Xiaomi MiMo-V2.6-Pro is cheaper at $0.435 per million input tokens, against $3 for Kimi K3 — roughly 6.9× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; Kimi K3 has tiered pricing: $3/$15 per MTok; cached input $0.30/MTok. max_completion_tokens can be set up to 1,048,576 (default 131,072). Open-weight under the custom Kimi K3 License (not a standard open-source licence). 2.8T MoE with native vision. Xiaomi MiMo-V2.6-Pro has tiered pricing: $0.435/$0.87 per MTok (cache hit $0.0036; cache writes free for a limited time) — unchanged from V2.5-Pro. UltraSpeed mode (mimo-v2.6-pro-ultraspeed) costs $4.35/$8.70. Open weights (MIT) as MiMo-V2.6-Pro-RL.
Is Kimi K3 or Xiaomi MiMo-V2.6-Pro cheaper for output?
Xiaomi MiMo-V2.6-Pro is cheaper at $0.87 per million output tokens, against $15 for Kimi K3 — roughly 17× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; Kimi K3 has tiered pricing: $3/$15 per MTok; cached input $0.30/MTok. max_completion_tokens can be set up to 1,048,576 (default 131,072). Open-weight under the custom Kimi K3 License (not a standard open-source licence). 2.8T MoE with native vision. Xiaomi MiMo-V2.6-Pro has tiered pricing: $0.435/$0.87 per MTok (cache hit $0.0036; cache writes free for a limited time) — unchanged from V2.5-Pro. UltraSpeed mode (mimo-v2.6-pro-ultraspeed) costs $4.35/$8.70. Open weights (MIT) as MiMo-V2.6-Pro-RL.
Which has the larger context window, Kimi K3 or Xiaomi MiMo-V2.6-Pro?
Both accept about 1.05M tokens of context, so document length will not decide between them.
Should I use Kimi K3 or Xiaomi MiMo-V2.6-Pro?
Both sit in the frontier tier, so the choice usually comes down to price and context rather than capability. Kimi K3 suits open-weight frontier work; Xiaomi MiMo-V2.6-Pro suits open-weight frontier work.

Next step

Choosing between them

The verified figures that separate this pair, computed from the catalog rather than restated boilerplate.

  • Input price: Xiaomi MiMo-V2.6-Pro costs $0.435 per 1M tokens versus $3 for Kimi K3 — a 6.9x difference at the headline tier.
  • Measured capability: Xiaomi MiMo-V2.6-Pro leads Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index 46.3 to 43.6 (measured 2026-09-26).
Run the model pickerEstimate stack costAll model comparisons

Choosing a harness rather than a model — Cursor, Copilot, Claude Code, Windsurf, or Lovable? Compare agentic harnesses · Latest releases.