THE TICKER · HEAD-TO-HEAD · CHECKED DAILY · LAST CHANGE 2026-08-14
CLAUDE OPUS 5 VS KIMI K2.6
Anthropic vs Moonshot AI, in USD per million tokens, cross-checked daily against the public pricing dataset. Same jobs, both meters running.
Claude Opus 5 costs 6.2x more than Kimi K2.6 for the same job — a 1,000-token prompt with a 3,000-token reply runs $0.08 vs $0.01. At 1,000 runs a day, that gap is $2,011.50 a month for identical traffic.
SIDE BY SIDE
| Claude Opus 5 → | Kimi K2.6 → | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | Anthropic | Moonshot AI |
| Input / MTok | $5.00 | $0.950 |
| Output / MTok | $25.00 | $4.00 |
| Output multiple | 5.0x | 4.2x |
| 1K prompt + 3K reply | $0.08 | $0.01 |
SAME JOB, BOTH BILLS
| Scenario | Claude Opus 5 | Kimi K2.6 | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| A typical prompt | $0.02 | $0.0039 | 6.2x |
| A 20-turn conversation | $0.12 | $0.02 | 6.1x |
| Summarizing a 10-page document | $0.12 | $0.02 | 5.9x |
| One agent run | $0.31 | $0.05 | 6.2x |
| A code review request | $0.10 | $0.02 | 6.2x |
Output sizes use the same editorial ratios as the Burn Calculator. Estimates, not invoices — and price is not a benchmark: the cheaper model is only a bargain if it does the job.
SETTLE IT WITH YOUR OWN PROMPT
Paste a real prompt into the Burn Calculator and see what it costs on Claude Opus 5, Kimi K2.6 and the other 19 models on the board — plus how much of it is waste either way.