If you are deciding whether to move from Kimi K2.5 to Kimi K2.6, the pricing gap is real enough that it should be part of the product decision, not an afterthought.
As of April 21, 2026, Moonshot lists Kimi K2.6 at $0.16 per 1M cached input tokens, $0.95 per 1M uncached input tokens, and $4.00 per 1M output tokens. The matching K2.5 page lists $0.10, $0.60, and $3.00.
So the upgrade is roughly 58 to 60 percent more expensive on input, and about 33 percent more expensive on output. That sounds steep until you look at the workloads K2.6 is meant for: longer coding runs, stronger follow-through, and better agent-style execution.
Practical read for builders
If your workload is cost-sensitive, asynchronous, or already stable on K2.5, the cheaper model still makes sense. Moonshot's own Batch API pricing page also still says Batch currently supports Kimi K2.5, which matters if you are doing high-volume offline work.
If your app leans on long-running coding loops, structured outputs, tool calls, or shared cached context, K2.6 can still be the better system-level choice even at a higher token rate, because fewer retries and fewer failed runs matter too.
Bottom line
K2.5 wins on raw cost. K2.6 wins when you care more about the quality of each run than the absolute cheapest bill.
Source article: https://kimi-k25.com/kimi-k2-6-pricing
Homepage: https://kimi-k25.com/
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