DeepSeek V4 Pro vs Kimi K3
Benchmarks, API Token Pricing, Context Window & Speed Comparison
Related topics (4)
Compare DeepSeek V4 Pro by DeepSeek against Kimi K3 by Moonshot AI across real-world coding, reasoning, token economics, and latency.
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DeepSeek V4 Pro
Agent BoostOfficial professional edition of V4 featuring a 390% jump in agentic execution capability and a frugal $0.67 task economic cost.
$1.32 / 1M
$3.96 / 1M
1M tokens
68.5%
Kimi K3
2.8T Open ReasonerMonumental 2.8-trillion parameter open-weights multimodal frontier model featuring 1M context window and toggleable max-effort thinking.
$0.00 / 1M
$0.00 / 1M
1.05M tokens
74.5%
Key Differences at a Glance
- Kimi K3 is 1.0x cheaper for API usage (input + output tokens combined).
- Kimi K3 has a larger context window (1M vs 1M tokens).
- DeepSeek V4 Pro is faster at 80 tok/s vs 58 tok/s.
- Kimi K3 leads on SWE-bench coding (74.5% vs 68.5%).
| Feature | DeepSeek V4 Pro | Kimi K3 |
|---|---|---|
Intelligence Index Composite reasoning & knowledge score (0-100) | 53 | 93 |
Provider | DeepSeek | Moonshot AI |
Input Price Cost per million input tokens | $1.32 / 1M | $0.00 / 1M |
Output Price Cost per million output tokens | $3.96 / 1M | $0.00 / 1M |
Blended Price Weighted 7:2:1 cache:input:output per 1M | $0.76 / 1M | $0.00 / 1M |
Context Window Maximum input + output tokens | 1M tokens~1,500 A4 pages of text | 1.05M tokens~1,573 A4 pages of text |
Max Output Tokens Per single request | 128K | 131K |
Throughput Speed Tokens generated per second | 80 tok/s | 58 tok/s |
SWE-bench Verified Real-world software engineering | 68.5% | 74.5% |
GPQA Diamond Graduate-level reasoning | 81.2% | 79% |
Cached Input Price Prompt caching discount per 1M tokens | $0.14 / 1M | $0.00 / 1M |
Who Wins Where?
At-a-glance decision frameworkEmpirical Head-to-Head Benchmark Scores
Official evaluation metrics verified by independent third-party research labs.
Industry benchmark evaluating real-world GitHub issue resolution and multi-file debugging.
Challenging questions created by domain experts to test complex PhD-level reasoning.
Hardened reasoning and academic knowledge benchmark with reduced lucky-guess probability.
Crowdsourced human preference evaluation based on blind, head-to-head model battles.
Extremely difficult, closed-ended questions spanning the frontier of human expert knowledge.
Autonomous multi-step tasks executed inside a real command-line terminal environment.
Research-grade coding problems drawn from real scientific and numerical workloads.
Contamination-free competitive programming problems collected continuously over time.
American Invitational Mathematics Examination — multi-step Olympiad-level reasoning.
Accuracy when reasoning over very large inputs that fill the model context window.
Tokens emitted per second during active generation streaming.
Latency & Response Time
Time to first token (TTFT) and estimated end-to-end response time for a typical 500-token response.
Real-Time Interactive Token Cost Simulator
Adjust sliders to calculate projected monthly cloud API spending with prompt caching discounts.
DeepSeek V4 Pro · Strengths & Key Advantages
- 390% measured leap in multi-turn autonomous agent execution stability
- Exceptional task economics with an average $0.67 cost per complex benchmark task
- Full 1M context input and 128K maximum output token generation
Considerations & Trade-offs
- Succeeded in raw architectural innovation by V4.1-Flash causal encoder-decoder design
- Pure text focus without native high-resolution visual processing
Kimi K3 · Strengths & Key Advantages
- Largest open-weights foundation model in existence (2.8T parameters)
- 1480 LMSYS Chatbot Arena Elo rivaling proprietary closed frontier leaders
- Full 1M token context window paired with massive 131K max output tokens
Considerations & Trade-offs
- Extreme hardware prerequisites (distributed multi-node cluster deployment)
- Generates extensive reasoning traces that demand careful token budget management
Token Use & Task Economics
Estimated cost and token consumption to complete one representative agentic task.
| Metric | DeepSeek V4 Pro | Kimi K3 |
|---|---|---|
Cost per Task Estimated USD to finish one task | $0.67 | $2.00 |
Output Tokens / Task Tokens generated per task | 52K | 35K |
Reasoning Tokens / Task Thinking tokens burned per task | 25K | 18K |
Technical Specifications
Architecture, release timeline, capabilities, and modalities.
| Feature | DeepSeek V4 Pro | Kimi K3 |
|---|---|---|
| Official API Model ID (SDK) | deepseek-reasoner | kimi-k3 |
| API Protocol | OpenAI-Compatible REST / vLLM / SGLang / HuggingFace TGI | OpenAI-Compatible REST / vLLM / SGLang / HuggingFace TGI |
| Release Date | 2026-08 | 2026-07 |
| Knowledge Cutoff | May 2026 | March 2026 |
| Architecture | Next-Gen Sparse MoE with Agent RL Tuning | Colossus-Scale Multimodal Sparse Mixture-of-Experts |
| Parameters | MoE (Colossal) | 2.8T total (MoE) |
| Enterprise Rate Limits (RPM / TPM) | Unlimited (Hardware-bound on self-hosted GPU) / 10,000 RPM Cloud · Unlimited local throughput / 10M+ TPM Managed Cloud | Unlimited (Hardware-bound on self-hosted GPU) / 10,000 RPM Cloud · Unlimited local throughput / 10M+ TPM Managed Cloud |
| Long-Context Tier (>128K/200K) | Flat rate ($1.32/1M in) across full 1000K window | Free across full context window (only KV-cache VRAM scales) |
| Prompt Cache Policy & TTL | Automatic prefix caching at $0.14/1M (no extra cache-write fee) | Automatic prefix KV-caching in vLLM / SGLang (0 cost) |
| Computer Use / GUI Agent | API / CLI Tool-Use & DOM Agent ready (no raw pixel desktop click loop) | Supported (Screen coordinate grounding, browser & desktop GUI action loops) |
| MCP & Parallel Tool Calling | Native MCP Client/Server ready · Parallel function calling · 100% Strict JSON Schema | Native MCP Client/Server ready · Parallel function calling · 100% Strict JSON Schema |
| Web Search Grounding & Sandbox | Supported via external Tavily/Exa Search & E2B/Docker Sandbox tools | Supported via external Tavily/Exa Search & E2B/Docker Sandbox tools |
| Official Fine-Tuning Support | Full Weights SFT, LoRA, QLoRA, DPO & GRPO RL (Unsloth / Axolotl / Llama-Factory) | Full Weights SFT, LoRA, QLoRA, DPO & GRPO RL (Unsloth / Axolotl / Llama-Factory) |
| Multimodal Token Billing | Text BPE (~4 chars/token) | Text BPE (~4 chars/token) · Vision (~258–765 tokens per image tile) |
| Quantization & Min GPU VRAM | BF16 / FP16, FP8 Dynamic, INT4 AWQ / GPTQ, GGUF (Q4_K_M / Q8_0) · 43 GB VRAM (4-bit Quantized) · 151 GB VRAM (Native BF16) | BF16 / FP16, FP8 Dynamic, INT4 AWQ / GPTQ, GGUF (Q4_K_M / Q8_0) · 1736 GB VRAM (4-bit Quantized) · 6020 GB VRAM (Native BF16) |
| Safety & Frontier Classification | Open-Weights System Card + Customizable Guardrail Layer (Llama Guard / ShieldGemma) | Open-Weights System Card + Customizable Guardrail Layer (Llama Guard / ShieldGemma) |
| Enterprise Compliance (ZDR/HIPAA/SOC2) | 100% Air-Gapped On-Premises / Private VPC · Full HIPAA, GDPR & SOC2 Control | 100% Air-Gapped On-Premises / Private VPC · Full HIPAA, GDPR & SOC2 Control |
| Input Modalities | text | text, vision |
| Output Modalities | text | text |
DeepSeek V4 Pro vs Kimi K3: Quick Answers
Which is more intelligent, DeepSeek V4 Pro or Kimi K3?
Kimi K3 is more intelligent. It scores 93 compared with 53 on the composite Intelligence Index.
Which model is faster?
DeepSeek V4 Pro is faster, generating 80 tokens per second compared with 58 tokens per second.
Which model is cheaper to run?
Kimi K3 is cheaper at $0.00 per 1M tokens blended, compared with $0.76 (7:2:1 cache:input:output ratio).
Which model has lower latency?
DeepSeek V4 Pro has lower latency, with a time to first token of 0.58s compared with 0.72s.
Which model has a larger context window?
Kimi K3 has a larger context window, supporting 1.05M tokens compared with 1M tokens.
Verdict
Choose DeepSeek V4 Pro for autonomous agent swarms, continuous code refactoring pipelines, and enterprise automation, or choose Kimi K3 for national ai research facilities, sovereign enterprise clouds, and frontier stem reasoning.
Frequently asked questions
Which is cheaper: DeepSeek V4 Pro or Kimi K3?+
DeepSeek V4 Pro costs $1.32/1M input and $3.96/1M output tokens, while Kimi K3 costs $0/1M input and $0/1M output tokens.
Which model has a larger context window: DeepSeek V4 Pro or Kimi K3?+
DeepSeek V4 Pro supports 1M tokens whereas Kimi K3 supports 1.0M tokens.
Understand key metrics like context window, token pricing, reasoning mode, and SWE-bench scores in our comprehensive AI glossary.
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Benchmark scores, token prices, and rate limits evolve rapidly as AI labs release model updates. Always verify current specifications and pricing on the official provider documentation.
Sources: DeepSeek & Moonshot AI Official Documentation