Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) vs Kimi K3 (Max)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) by Anthropic or Kimi K3 (Max) by Kimi? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick Kimi K3 (Max)
Kimi K3 (Max) vs Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max): 44.9% more intelligence, 25.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 48.4% faster end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) | Kimi K3 (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 30.1 | 43.6 | +44.9% Kimi K3 (Max) is 44.9% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,924.80 | $3,658.07 | −25.7% Kimi K3 (Max) is 25.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 104.36s | 53.89s | −48.4% Kimi K3 (Max) is 48.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $3.00 / $15.0 | $3.00 / $15.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Kimi K3 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max)Kimi K3 (Max)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-4-6-adaptive/kimi-k3 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-4-6-adaptive/kimi-k3?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill