Kimi K3 is Kimi’s flagship model for long-horizon coding and end-to-end knowledge work, with a 1M-token context window and industry-leading intelligence.
Kimi K3 vs Qwen3 Max 2026 01-23
Compare Kimi K3 from Moonshot AI and Qwen3 Max 2026 01-23 from Qwen on key metrics including benchmarks, price, context length, and other model features. Access both models and hundreds of others through the AIHubMix API.
The snapshot version of the Tongyi Qianwen 3 series Max model is from January 23, 2026. By default, it does not require thinking, but thinking mode can be enabled through the enable_thinking parameter, as detailed in the code example. (After enabling thinking by passing parameters, it becomes: Qwen3-Max-Thinking). This model has a total parameter count exceeding one trillion (1T) and a pre-training data volume of up to 36T Tokens, making it the largest and most powerful reasoning model from Alibaba to date.
Pricing & Specifications
Prices are per million tokens. Time to First Token and throughput are rolling averages measured on AIHubMix.
Promotional prices show the discounted rate; see each model page for promotion windows.
Activity Past 30 Days
Daily traffic served through AIHubMix — how demand for each model is trending.
Tokens / day
Requests / day
Performance Past 3 Days
Measured on real AIHubMix traffic, hourly buckets. Gaps mean no traffic in that hour.
Throughput (tok/s)
TTFT (s)
Uptime (%)
LMArena Benchmarks
LMArena ratings by capability (Bradley-Terry, commonly called Elo). Higher is better.
Source: LMArena (arena.ai) leaderboard, imported by AIHubMix. Models without published ratings are omitted per chart.
Cost calculator
Estimate your monthly bill for the same workload on each model.
Monthly = daily × 30. Discounted rates applied where a promotion is active.
FAQ
Which is cheaper: Kimi K3, Qwen3 Max 2026 01-23?
Qwen3 Max 2026 01-23: $1.80/M output tokens; Kimi K3: $15.00/M. Use the cost calculator above to estimate your own workload.
How do their coding arena scores compare?
Kimi K3: 1531; Qwen3 Max 2026 01-23: 1475 (LMArena coding leaderboard).
Which responds faster?
Qwen3 Max 2026 01-23: 0.9s time to first token measured on AIHubMix; see the live performance charts above for how each model behaves across the day.
How large is each context window?
Kimi K3 accepts 1,048,576 and Qwen3 Max 2026 01-23 accepts 252,000 input tokens. Maximum output per request is 1,048,576 tokens on Kimi K3 and 32,000 tokens on Qwen3 Max 2026 01-23.
Which one generates tokens faster?
Kimi K3 at 73.1 tok/s and Qwen3 Max 2026 01-23 at 31.3 tok/s, measured as output throughput on AIHubMix — a separate metric from time to first token.
What inputs and capabilities does each model support?
Kimi K3 accepts text, image and video input and supports thinking, function calling and structured outputs; Qwen3 Max 2026 01-23 accepts text input and supports thinking, function calling and structured outputs.
Can I call Kimi K3 and Qwen3 Max 2026 01-23 with the same API key?
Yes. AIHubMix serves every model on this page behind one OpenAI-compatible endpoint, so switching between them is a one-line change to the model field — no second account, key or SDK.
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