Kimi K3 vs Qwen3.8 Max Prime
Pick up to 3 models · pricing, context and capabilities · simulate your product cost
Data updated on September 30, 2026· 217 models
Kimi K3 is a 2.8T parameter open-weight multimodal reasoning model from Moonshot AI.
- Reasoning estimated
- Speed estimated
- Input
- Output
- Context
- ▲1 M tokens
- Max output
- ▲944 K
- Input, $ per 1M tokens
- ▲$3.00
- Output, $ per 1M tokens
- $15.00
- Cache read, $ per 1M
- $0.300
- Batch (input / output)
- $2.28 / $11.40
- Tool calling
- Yes
- Released
- 07/16/2026
- Knowledge cutoff
- —
- API id
- moonshotai/kimi-k3
Qwen3.8 Max Prime is a higher-throughput variant of Qwen3.8 Max from Alibaba's Qwen team, served as a separate SKU at a higher price point.
- Reasoning estimated
- Speed estimated
- Input
- Output
- Context
- 1 M tokens
- Max output
- 131 K
- Input, $ per 1M tokens
- $4.00
- Output, $ per 1M tokens
- ▲$12.00
- Cache read, $ per 1M
- $0.500
- Batch (input / output)
- —
- Tool calling
- Yes
- Released
- ▲09/23/2026
- Knowledge cutoff
- —
- API id
- qwen/qwen3.8-max-prime
Which is the better API choice: Kimi K3 vs Qwen3.8 Max Prime?
- Kimi K3: cheapest input (25% less than Qwen3.8 Max Prime)
- Qwen3.8 Max Prime: cheapest output
- Kimi K3: largest context (1 M)
- Qwen3.8 Max Prime: the newest (09/23/2026)
Pricing is split: Kimi K3 wins on input and Qwen3.8 Max Prime wins on output. Kimi K3 accepts more context (1 M). Kimi K3 offers a batch tier at half price for jobs that do not need an immediate answer.
What would your product cost?
Estimate the monthly cost with your app's real volume. List prices, no cache or batch discounts.
With Kimi K3 you save $3.00 a month versus Qwen3.8 Max Prime (3% less).
The 6 cheapest for this scenario (chat, last 12 months)
- 1Lyria 3 Pro Preview Google$0.00
- 2Lyria 3 Clip Preview Google$0.00
- 3Qwen3.7 Flash Qwen$0.97
- 4DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 DeepSeek$1.55
- 5Ministral 3 3B 2512 Mistral$1.90
- 6Qwen3.5-Flash Qwen$2.02
Paste your prompt: tokens and cost per model
Rough estimate (about 4 characters per token). Nothing is sent to any server.
Cost of sending it 1,000 times (input only)
- 1Claude Sonnet 5.5 Anthropic$0.152
- 2Claude Sonnet 5 Anthropic$0.152
- 3Kimi K3 Moonshot$0.228
- 4Qwen3.8 Max Prime Qwen$0.304
- 5Claude Opus 5.5 Anthropic$0.304
- 6Claude Opus 5 Anthropic$0.380
- 7Claude Fable 5.1 Anthropic$0.760
- 8Claude Fable 5 Anthropic$0.760
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- Gemini 3.8 Flash vs Grok 4.7
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Frequently asked questions
Which is the better API choice: Kimi K3 vs Qwen3.8 Max Prime?
Pricing is split: Kimi K3 wins on input and Qwen3.8 Max Prime wins on output. Kimi K3 accepts more context (1 M). Kimi K3 offers a batch tier at half price for jobs that do not need an immediate answer.
Which is cheaper: Kimi K3 and Qwen3.8 Max Prime?
Kimi K3 is cheaper: $3.00 per million input tokens and $15.00 per million output tokens, versus $4.00 / $12.00 for Qwen3.8 Max Prime.
Which has more context: Kimi K3 and Qwen3.8 Max Prime?
Kimi K3 accepts 1 M tokens of context; Qwen3.8 Max Prime accepts 1 M.
Which is newer: Kimi K3 and Qwen3.8 Max Prime?
Qwen3.8 Max Prime was released on 09/23/2026; Kimi K3 on 07/16/2026.
What would 10,000 requests a month cost with Kimi K3 and Qwen3.8 Max Prime?
With 1,500 input and 400 output tokens per request: Kimi K3: $105.00; Qwen3.8 Max Prime: $108.00 a month, at list price.
Where do the prices come from and how often are they updated?
From the public catalogs of OpenRouter, models.dev and LiteLLM, which publish each provider's list prices. They sync once a day and the last update date is shown above the comparison.
What does price per million tokens mean?
It is what the provider charges per million tokens you send (input) or the model generates (output). A token is roughly 4 characters. Output almost always costs more than input.
Sources: OpenRouter, models.dev and LiteLLM. Prices in USD per million tokens, list price, no volume discounts. Prompt tokens are an estimate; each provider's tokenizer may differ.