API cost decision in 10 seconds

Kimi K2 0905 vs R1

Pick Kimi K2 0905 when budget and context both matter.

Page updated: 2026-05-26T15:08:08Z Data confirmed: 2026-05-26T18:08:02Z Prices normalized to USD per 1M tokens Sample workload: 1M input + 500K output

Budget verdict

Pick Kimi K2 0905 when budget and context both matter.

On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Kimi K2 0905 is estimated at $1.85 vs $1.95 for R1, saving $0.1 (5.1% lower).

Cost-first pickKimi K2 0905

Context-first pickKimi K2 0905

Sample savings$0.15.1%

10x traffic gap$1

Kimi K2 0905 is cheaper on the standard workload and also has the larger context window. At 10x that traffic, the same price gap is about $1. Use the calculator below to replace the sample workload with your own token volume.

Cost sensitivity

Workload Sensitivity

Same prices, different token mixes.

Kimi K2 0905 stays cheaper across input-heavy, balanced, and output-heavy sample workloads.

Workload shape	Token mix	Better pick	Kimi K2 0905	R1
Input-heavy / RAG	5M input + 500K output	Kimi K2 0905	$4.25	$4.75
Balanced workload	1M input + 1M output	Kimi K2 0905	$3.1	$3.2
Output-heavy chatbot	1M input + 5M output	Kimi K2 0905	$13.1	$13.2

Cheaper input Kimi K2 0905 $0.6 vs $0.7 / 1M

Kimi K2 0905 is $0.1 cheaper per 1M input tokens (14.3% lower; 1.17x difference).

Cheaper output Tie $2.5 vs $2.5 / 1M

Both models report the same output price at $2.5 per 1M tokens.

Larger context Kimi K2 0905 262.14K vs 163.84K

Kimi K2 0905 has 98.3K more context (1.6x larger).

Sample workload Kimi K2 0905 $1.85 vs $1.95

Kimi K2 0905 is $0.1 cheaper on the standard workload (5.1% lower).

Estimate your workload cost

Your Workload Cost

Prices are normalized to USD per 1M tokens.

Monthly input tokens Monthly output tokens

Kimi K2 0905 Calculating… Estimated API cost

R1 Calculating… Estimated API cost

Cheaper for this workload Calculating… Difference: calculating…

This estimate uses normalized public API pricing per 1M tokens. It is a planning aid, not a billing quote. Verify provider pricing, limits, and terms before production use.

Quick Decision

Verdict

Kimi K2 0905 has the lower input price; both models tie on output price; Kimi K2 0905 offers the larger context window. For the 1M input plus 500K output sample, Kimi K2 0905 is cheaper for the standard workload.

For a 1M input token plus 500K output token workload, the estimated API cost is $1.85 for Kimi K2 0905 and $1.95 for R1.

Best Fit

Choose Kimi K2 0905 when you care most about lower input-token price, and larger context window.

Choose R1 when its provider, model quality, latency, or availability is more important than the numeric price/context winner.

Decision Notes

On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Kimi K2 0905 is estimated at $1.85 vs $1.95 for R1, saving $0.1 (5.1% lower).
Kimi K2 0905 is $0.1 cheaper on the standard workload (5.1% lower).
Kimi K2 0905 is $0.1 cheaper per 1M input tokens (14.3% lower; 1.17x difference).
Both models report the same output price at $2.5 per 1M tokens.
Kimi K2 0905 has 98.3K more context (1.6x larger).

Head-to-Head Specs

Feature	Kimi K2 0905 (MoonshotAI)	R1 (DeepSeek)
Input Price prompt tokens per 1M	$0.6	$0.7
Completion Price per 1M tokens	$2.5	$2.5
Sample Workload Cost 1M input + 500K output	$1.85	$1.95
Context Window	262.14K	163.84K
Release Date	2025-09-04	2025-01-20
Popularity	#70	#144

Use-Case Decision Matrix

Use case	Better pick	Why
Budget-constrained production	Kimi K2 0905	On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Kimi K2 0905 is estimated at $1.85 vs $1.95 for R1, saving $0.1 (5.1% lower).
High-volume input processing	Kimi K2 0905	Lower prompt-token price matters most when prompts, retrieved passages, or documents dominate the bill.
Long responses and chatbots	Tie	Lower output-token price matters most when assistants generate many completion tokens.
RAG or long-document work	Kimi K2 0905	A larger context window leaves more room for retrieved passages, conversation history, or source files.

Related Alternatives

Same-provider lower-cost swaps

Kimi K2.5 can replace Kimi K2 0905 when lower sample workload cost matters most: $1.35.
Kimi K2 0711 can replace Kimi K2 0905 when lower sample workload cost matters most: $1.72.
DeepSeek V4 Flash (free) can replace R1 when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.
DeepSeek V4 Flash can replace R1 when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.2.

Larger context near this budget

Llama 4 Scout offers 10M context with $0.23 sample workload cost.
Owl Alpha offers 1.05M context with $0 sample workload cost.
DeepSeek V4 Flash offers 1.05M context with $0.2 sample workload cost.
DeepSeek V4 Pro offers 1.05M context with $0.87 sample workload cost.

Popular competitors

DeepSeek V4 Flash · DeepSeek · #1
Hy3 preview · Tencent · #2
Claude Opus 4.7 · Anthropic · #3
Claude Sonnet 4.6 · Anthropic · #4

Cheaper alternatives

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Larger context alternatives

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Provider catalogs

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MoonshotAI catalog

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DeepSeek catalog

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Kimi K2 0905

Kimi K2 0905 is the September update of [Kimi K2 0711](moonshotai/kimi-k2). It is a large-scale Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) language model developed by Moonshot AI, featuring 1 trillion total parameters with 32...

DeepSeek R1 is here: Performance on par with [OpenAI o1](/openai/o1), but open-sourced and with fully open reasoning tokens. It's 671B parameters in size, with 37B active in an inference pass....