Kimi K3 Isn't Dirt Cheap

At least not for small operators

Kimi K3 is the latest frontier model from Moonshot AI. While the model is free to download, it is not free to run given its size.

For example, running K3 on OpenRouter costs $3/$15 for 1M input/output tokens - less expensive than than Anthropic’s Claude models, but not exactly free.

Moonshot AI prices its K3 model at zero cost, but charges for infrastructure. My view is that $3 and $15 is more about Moonshot AI positioning Kimi K3 at the frontier rather than Moonshot working to recoup OpEx.

I won’t spend time testing K3 as it does not make sense for me to invest in building a tools layer such that K3 would work with Kilby if in fact I can’t materially reduce Kilby’s COGS.

Larger firms will use Kimi K3 as they have infrastructure that I do not, therefore they can run K3 effectively at zero cost. For those larger organizations, the costs stem from calibrating K3’s model weights and having to allocate compute and power to K3.

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