Kimi K2 Thinking API Pricing
Moonshot (Kimi) · context window 262K · prices updated 2026-09-15
Where Kimi K2 Thinking sits on price
At $2.50 per million output tokens, Kimi K2 Thinking is a mid tier model — 1.2× the median output price of $2.08, which puts it cheaper than 45% and pricier than 55% of the models we track. It sits 3th cheapest of the 8 Moonshot (Kimi) models we track. Output costs 4.2× input, the usual spread — trim both, starting with the answer length.
Cached input is 75% cheaper. On an input-heavy workload you need roughly a 33% 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 Thinking
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. | $0.0065 | $97.50 |
| Document pipeline — 10K docs/day (3K in / 500 out) Batch-friendly: no user waiting, so a ~50% batch discount usually applies. | $0.003 | $915 |
| Small app — 1K requests/day (500 in / 150 out) The baseline most side projects actually run at. | $0.0007 | $20.25 |
Model your exact traffic in the API cost calculator — it preloads Kimi K2 Thinking with caching and batch options.
Kimi K2 Thinking price history
Kimi K2 Thinking's price has not moved since we began tracking it on Aug 2, 2026 — 44 days of stability in a market where 78 of the 334 models we track have repriced over the same period, including 4 of Moonshot (Kimi)'s own 8 models.
Change-points from our daily price snapshots (tracking since Aug 2, 2026; intraday moves between snapshots are not captured).
Kimi K2 Thinking vs Nova 2 Lite
The closest-priced alternative from another vendor is Nova 2 Lite (Amazon) — priced within a rounding error on output, with $0.3 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 Thinking API cost?
Kimi K2 Thinking costs $0.6 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens, with cached input at $0.15 per million (75% cheaper). That works out to roughly 400,000 output tokens per dollar.
› What does the support chatbot workload cost on Kimi K2 Thinking?
Support chatbot — 500 conversations/day (5K in / 1.4K out) costs about $0.0065 per request and $97.50 per month on Kimi K2 Thinking. Conversation history re-sent each turn — the classic prompt-caching win.
› What does it cost to fill Kimi K2 Thinking's 262K context window?
Sending 262K of input in a single request costs $0.1573 at $0.6 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 Thinking worth the price?
Kimi K2 Thinking sits in the middle of the market (3 of 8 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.