Kimi K2.6 is the everyday model in the Kimi family. It is the one you chat with for free in the Kimi app, and the low-cost choice for developers. It handles questions, writing, coding and agent tasks, understands pictures, and is the only current Kimi model that can answer instantly or think first, as you choose.
Fast when you want speed, careful when you want depth.
Kimi's general-purpose model for everyday chat, writing, coding and agents.
Free to chat with in the app. $0.95 in and $4 out per million tokens on the API.
Thinking you can switch off, and Agent Swarm with up to 300 helpers.
A model is the "brain" behind an AI assistant. Kimi K2.6 is the general-purpose one: good at many things and priced for daily use. Moonshot released it on 20 April 2026 as the follow-up to Kimi K2.5, with the same design and size but better results, especially on long tasks.
From Moonshot's Kimi K2.6 model card. The release date is from news coverage at launch. The page estimate uses about 650 tokens a page. New to these words? See how Kimi works.
Moonshot's model card highlights four things.
It can stay on one programming task for hours. Moonshot describes runs of more than 12 hours and 4,000 tool calls.
It turns a short description or a picture into a working interface, with layout, buttons and animation.
It can split a big job between up to 300 helper agents over 4,000 steps, then join the results into documents, sites or spreadsheets.
It is built to run background agents that keep working on a schedule. It is the default model behind Kimi Claw.
See these in use: Agent Swarm in K2.6 · Kimi Claw · Design to Code · Agent Mode
Kimi K3 and Kimi K2.7 Code always think before they answer. Kimi K2.6 lets you decide. That makes it the natural pick when speed and cost matter more than depth.
On the API, thinking is on by default and developers switch it off in the request. The modes offered in the Kimi app may be named differently.
First, the improvement over Kimi K2.5 on six tests. Higher is better.
Fixing real software bugs
Harder, longer bug fixes
Coding tasks in a terminal
Finding hard facts online
Expert-level questions
Understanding pictures
Second, against the leading models from other companies at the time it launched, in April 2026. The best score in each row is marked.
| Test | Kimi K2.6 | GPT-5.4 | Claude Opus 4.6 | Gemini 3.1 Pro |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-Bench ProHarder bug fixes | 58.6 | 57.7 | 53.4 | 54.2 |
| SWE-bench VerifiedFixing real bugs | 80.2 | Not given | 80.8 | 80.6 |
| DeepSearchQADeep web research | 92.5 | 78.6 | 91.3 | 81.9 |
| HLE-FullExpert questions, no tools | 34.7 | 39.8 | 40.0 | 44.4 |
| MMMU-ProUnderstanding pictures | 79.4 | 81.2 | 73.9 | 83.0 |
On a small screen, swipe the table sideways to see every column.
Everyday chat at kimi.com and in the mobile apps runs on Kimi K2.6, free.
Because the weights are open, some cloud companies host it too. Prices and limits are theirs.
That free chat uses Kimi K2.6 comes from our pricing pages. Confirm on kimi.com.
| API, per million tokens | Input | Cached input | Output |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | $0.95 | $0.16 | $4.00 |
| Batch | $0.57 | $0.10 | $2.40 |
On a small screen, swipe the table sideways to see every column.
API prices from Moonshot's price pages, before tax. More: Kimi API pricing · Is Kimi AI free?
kimi-k2.6, at https://api.moonshot.ai/v1. It works with the OpenAI SDK."thinking": {"type": "disabled"} to switch it off.max_tokens defaults to 32,768.Full walkthrough: Kimi K2.6 API · Kimi API setup
| Kimi K2.6 | Kimi K2.7 Code | Kimi K3 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Made for | Everyday general work | Programming | The hardest tasks of any kind |
| Thinking | On or off | Always on | Always on |
| Reads at once | About 262K tokens | About 262K tokens | About 1 million tokens |
| API price, in / out | $0.95 / $4.00 | $0.95 / $4.00 | $3.00 / $15.00 |
| Batch price | Yes | Yes | Not listed |
| Pick it for | Chat, writing, quick tasks, high volume | Daily coding | Huge documents and deep reasoning |
On a small screen, swipe the table sideways to see every column.
More: Kimi K2.7 Code · Kimi K3 · choose a Kimi model