Kimi K2.5 API Pricing
Moonshot (Kimi) · context window 262K · prices updated 2026-10-30
Where Kimi K2.5 sits on price
At $2.50 per million output tokens, Kimi K2.5 is a mid tier model — 1.1× the median output price of $2.20, which puts it cheaper than 48% and pricier than 52% of the models we track. It sits 4th cheapest of the 9 Moonshot (Kimi) models we track. Output costs 5.0× input, the usual spread — trim both, starting with the answer length.
Cached input is 70% cheaper. On an input-heavy workload you need roughly a 36% cache-hit rate to take 25% off the input line — reachable for chatbots and agents that resend the same system prompt and history.
What real workloads cost on Kimi K2.5
These three workloads are the ones teams actually run on a mid-priced model — a $2.50/1M model is not bought for the same job as one ten times the price.
| Workload | Per request | Per month |
|---|---|---|
| Support chatbot — 500 conversations/day (5K in / 1.4K out) Conversation history re-sent each turn — the classic prompt-caching win. | $0.006 | $90.00 |
| Document pipeline — 10K docs/day (3K in / 500 out) Batch-friendly: no user waiting, so a ~50% batch discount usually applies. | $0.0027 | $825 |
| Small app — 1K requests/day (500 in / 150 out) The baseline most side projects actually run at. | $0.0006 | $18.75 |
Model your exact traffic in the API cost calculator — it preloads Kimi K2.5 with caching and batch options.
Kimi K2.5 price history
Moonshot (Kimi) last raised Kimi K2.5's output price on Oct 10, 2026 (+11% per output token), from $0.45/$2.25 to $0.5/$2.50 per 1M in/out. That is one of 4 repricings in the 89 days we have tracked it — worth knowing before you hard-code today's rate into a budget.
| Date | Input /1M | Output /1M | Output change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 2, 2026 (tracking began) | $0.57 | $2.85 | — |
| Aug 21, 2026 | $0.45 | $2.25 | -21% |
| Aug 25, 2026 | $0.6 | $3.00 | +33% |
| Aug 31, 2026 | $0.45 | $2.25 | -25% |
| Oct 10, 2026 | $0.5 | $2.50 | +11% |
Change-points from our daily price snapshots (tracking since Aug 2, 2026; intraday moves between snapshots are not captured).
Kimi K2.5 vs Nova 2 Lite
The closest-priced alternative from another vendor is Nova 2 Lite (Amazon) — priced within a rounding error on output, with $0.2 less per million input tokens. When two models land this close on price, the decision is quality on your own workload, not the price sheet: run 50 real requests through both and compare.
See Nova 2 Lite pricing →Cheaper alternatives
More Moonshot (Kimi) models
Frequently asked questions
› How much does the Kimi K2.5 API cost?
Kimi K2.5 costs $0.5 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens, with cached input at $0.15 per million (70% cheaper). That works out to roughly 400,000 output tokens per dollar.
› What does the support chatbot workload cost on Kimi K2.5?
Support chatbot — 500 conversations/day (5K in / 1.4K out) costs about $0.006 per request and $90.00 per month on Kimi K2.5. Conversation history re-sent each turn — the classic prompt-caching win.
› What does it cost to fill Kimi K2.5's 262K context window?
Sending 262K of input in a single request costs $0.1311 at $0.5 per million tokens — before any output. With prompt caching that same fill drops to about $0.0393 on repeat requests. This is why large context windows are cheap to advertise and expensive to actually use.
› Is Kimi K2.5 worth the price?
Kimi K2.5 sits in the middle of the market (4 of 9 by price within Moonshot (Kimi)). The honest test is a routing experiment: send the same 200 real requests to this model and to a tier below, and compare failure rate against the price gap — most teams find a majority of traffic never needed the pricier model.