Head to head · October 2026

Claude Sonnet 5 vs Kimi K3 API pricing

Kimi K3 costs 1.8 times less per token at an 80/20 mix. Input costs 1.8x more on Claude Sonnet 5. Output costs 1.8x more on Claude Sonnet 5.

Anthropic

Claude Sonnet 5

Daily coding in Cursor, Cline and Claude Code.

Vendor: Anthropic
Type: Frontier
SayGM in / out: $1.78 / $8.89
OpenRouter in / out: $2.11 / $10.55
Blended, 80/20: $3.202
Per 100M tokens: $320
Output share of bill: 56%
SayGM vs OpenRouter: 16% lower

Moonshot AI

Kimi K3

Open-weight coding and agent workloads.

Vendor: Moonshot AI
Type: Open weight, TEE variant available
SayGM in / out: $0.98 / $4.88
OpenRouter in / out: $0.42 / $9.50
Blended, 80/20: $1.760
Per 100M tokens: $176
Output share of bill: 55%
SayGM vs OpenRouter: 21% lower

§ 01

Monthly bill at three usage levels

Both models on SayGM. The bars show how the price ratio turns into dollars as volume grows.

Fig. 1Monthly bill at three usage levels

Claude Sonnet 5 on SayGM
Kimi K3 on SayGM

Side project5M in · 1M out

$18

$9.78

Production app50M in · 15M out

$222

$122

High volume500M in · 100M out

$1,779

$978

Show data as a table

	Claude Sonnet 5 on SayGM	Kimi K3 on SayGM
Side project (5M in · 1M out)	$18	$9.78
Production app (50M in · 15M out)	$222	$122
High volume (500M in · 100M out)	$1,779	$978

Usage is millions of input and output tokens per month. No caching discount applied. Source: published rate cards, October 2026 snapshot. Current prices on saygm.com.

§ 02

Verdict

A common pattern is to send routine requests to Kimi K3 and escalate to Claude Sonnet 5 on failure or low confidence. On one key, that is a model name change per request rather than a second provider account.

§ 03

Per-token prices

OpenRouter figures include its 5.5% top-up fee.

USD per million tokens, input and output. OpenRouter includes its 5.5% top-up fee. Snapshot from October 2026.
Model	SayGMin / out	OpenRouterin / out, fee incl.	SayGM vs OpenRouter80/20 blend
Claude Sonnet 5Anthropic	$1.78 / $8.89	$2.11 / $10.55	16% lower
Kimi K3Moonshot AI · TEE variant	$0.98 / $4.88	$0.42 / $9.50Cheapest provider	21% lower

Current SayGM rates

§ 04

Claude Sonnet 5 vs Kimi K3 questions

Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5 or Kimi K3?

Kimi K3 is about 1.8 times cheaper than Claude Sonnet 5 at an 80/20 input to output mix on SayGM, as of October 2026.

How much do Claude Sonnet 5 and Kimi K3 cost on OpenRouter?

Including the 5.5 percent top-up fee, Claude Sonnet 5 costs $2.11 input and $11 output per million tokens, and Kimi K3 costs $0.42 and $9.50.

Can I use Claude Sonnet 5 and Kimi K3 with one API key?

Yes. SayGM serves both through their native APIs on a single key, so simple tasks can go to Kimi K3 and hard ones to Claude Sonnet 5, or both can run in a cascade model.

§ 05