Last updated: 2026-08-25
Kimi is Moonshot AI's open source multimodal assistant, built on a 1-trillion-parameter Mixture-of-Experts model with 32 billion parameters active per query. Its Agent Swarm feature coordinates sub-agents in parallel across research, coding, and analysis tasks, and the whole stack runs under a Modified MIT license for self-hosting.
About Kimi
Kimi is a frontier AI assistant from Moonshot AI, a Beijing-based lab founded in 2023 that has raised $1.77B, including a $500M Series C at a $4.3B valuation in January 2026. The current Kimi K2.5 model uses a Mixture-of-Experts architecture with 1 trillion total parameters (32 billion active per query), and the weights have been published under a Modified MIT open-source license since July 2025.
Both a consumer chat app and a developer API are available; the API is billed per token while the chat app runs on subscription tiers. Kimi is positioned for developers, researchers, and cost-sensitive teams that want frontier-class capability without proprietary lock-in.
Pricing
Free tier (Adagio) with unlimited basic chat but limited agent usage. Consumer subscriptions: Andante $19/month (¥49 CNY), Moderato/Allegretto $39-79/month (¥99-199 CNY), Vivace $159-199/month. 15/M (75% discount).
00/M. Automatic $5 voucher when cumulative recharge reaches $5.
| Tier | Monthly price | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Kimi K2.5 | Free | Pay-as-you-go, usage-based with automatic context caching. Minimum recharge $1. |
| Kimi K2.5 Turbo | Free | High-speed endpoint, 60-100 tokens/sec output streaming. |
| Kimi K2.5 Thinking | Free | Reasoning tokens charged separately as special output token type. |
| Kimi K2 | Free | Same as K2.5, pay-as-you-go with context caching |
Key Features
- Kimi K3 (2.8T Parameters): Kimi K3 launched July 16, 2026 as Moonshot AI's largest open-source model at 2.8 trillion parameters with a 1M-token context window. Moonshot says it performs competitively with Claude Fable 5 and beats Claude Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.6 Sol on its benchmarks, with full open weights due by July 27, 2026 under a Modified MIT licence.
- Kimi K2.6 with Office Pilot: K2.6 (April 2026) introduces K2.6 Thinking for step-by-step math and logic, Office Pilot for lossless conversion across PPT/Word/Excel/PDF with auto-generated formulas, and support for analyzing 50 files at once.
- Native Multimodality: Pre-trained on vision and language tokens with advanced visual understanding, enabling code generation from UI designs and visual task comprehension
- Agent Swarm (300 Sub-Agents): Spawns up to 300 sub-agents in parallel with 4,000+ coordinated steps, cutting execution time by up to 4.5x for complex multi-step research, coding, and analysis tasks.
- Extended Context Window: Supports 256K token context window enabling processing of entire documents, books, and extended conversations without losing context
- Thinking & Instant Modes: Offers both deep reasoning mode for complex problems and instant mode for quick responses, with configurable reasoning depth
- OpenAI-Compatible API: Drop-in replacement for OpenAI API with automatic context caching that lowers costs on repeated content
- 300-Step Tool Calling: Supports autonomous execution of up to 300 sequential tool calls for complex workflows including web search, file operations, and system commands
Pros
- Reviewers consistently cite the price-to-benchmark ratio as the main draw: frontier-class coding and reasoning scores at a fraction of what proprietary APIs charge per token.
- Being open-weight under a Modified MIT license means teams can self-host or fine-tune Kimi instead of depending on a single vendor's uptime and terms.
- Native multimodal input and agentic tool-calling remove the need to bolt on a separate vision model or orchestration framework for common visual-coding and multi-step workflows.
Cons
- Chinese-first interface and primary focus on the Chinese market may limit international support and documentation.
- Younger vendor with less established enterprise support compared to OpenAI and Anthropic.
- Data residency concerns for users requiring non-China infrastructure, since Moonshot AI is based in Beijing.
- Limited established integrations compared to competitor platforms with a longer market presence.
Data Handling
- Compliance
- Open-source weights released July 2025
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Kimi actually cost?
Kimi's consumer chat app is free on the Adagio plan; paid tiers run from Andante at $19/month up to Vivace at $159-199/month for higher agent usage. API access is billed separately at $0.60 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens, with cached input tokens at $0.15/million (a 75% discount) and a faster Turbo endpoint at $1.15/$8.00 per million.
Can you use Kimi without paying?
Yes, the Adagio tier includes unlimited basic chat at no cost. Agent Swarm and higher-volume agent features are reserved for paid consumer tiers starting at Allegretto, and the developer API carries no free quota; every API call is billed per token from the first request.
What are Kimi's closest competitors?
ChatGPT is the closest mainstream alternative, with a free plan and a paid tier around $20/month plus a much larger existing user base. DeepSeek is the more direct match: also open source and priced for cost-sensitive API use. Qwen from Alibaba is worth a look for its longer context windows and broader language coverage if you work outside English.
How does Kimi compare to ChatGPT in 2026?
Kimi undercuts ChatGPT on per-token API pricing and is available as open-weight software that teams can self-host; ChatGPT stays closed-source but has a far larger installed user base and broader third-party integrations. Pick Kimi for cost-sensitive, self-hostable deployments; pick ChatGPT for out-of-the-box breadth of integrations.
How do you set up Kimi?
Sign up for the free Adagio plan at kimi.com to try the chat interface with no cost. For API access, create an account on the Moonshot AI platform, generate an API key, and call the OpenAI-compatible endpoint: most existing OpenAI SDK code only needs a base-URL and key change to start working.
Top Alternatives
- ChatGPT: Kimi undercuts on per-token API pricing and ships as open weights; ChatGPT counters with 900 million weekly users and deeper third-party integrations.
- DeepSeek: DeepSeek matches Kimi on open-source, cost-effective reasoning; Kimi differentiates with native multimodal input and Agent Swarm's parallel task execution.
- Qwen: Qwen leads on context window size (1M tokens) and 119+ language support; Kimi leads on Agent Swarm's parallel execution and its MoonViT vision encoder.
HokAI guides covering Kimi
- ChatGPT vs Kimi: Which Should You Use in 2026?: ChatGPT costs more but does more. Kimi scores higher on reasoning benchmarks and costs less per token, but its paid plans are sold out. The 2026 verdict.
- Best AI Assistant Apps for Android in 2026, Now That Google Assistant Is Dead: Google Assistant shut down on Android September 4, 2026. Here is how Gemini, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot, Meta AI and Claude compare as its replacement.
- What Together AI Is Actually For, Now IBM Is Betting $240 Million on It: IBM is spending $240M on Together AI's inference cluster and Together raised $800M in July. Here's what changed for buyers this week, and what did not.