AI model comparison

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs Kimi K3

Pricing, context window, benchmarks, and features compared side by side. Or skip the guesswork and send one prompt to both.

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is a sparse mixture-of-experts model from DeepSeek, and the first built on the company's Causal Encoder-Decoder (CED) architecture.

Input / 1M
$0.30
Output / 1M
$1.20
Context
1.05M
moonshotai logo

Moonshot AI

Kimi K3

Kimi K3 is a 2.8T parameter open-weight multimodal reasoning model from Moonshot AI.

Input / 1M
$0.80
Output / 1M
$10
Context
1.05M

At a glance

Quick verdict

How the two models stack up on the things people ask about most.

Lower price

deepseek logo

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash

5.5x cheaper for a typical chat

Higher intelligence score

moonshotai logo

Kimi K3

43.6 vs 39.5 on Artificial Analysis

Larger context window

Tie

1.05M vs 1.05M tokens

Newer release

deepseek logo

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash

Released September 10, 2026

Benchmarks

Benchmark scores

Independent scores from Artificial Analysis. Higher is better.

Intelligence index

deepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 Flash39.5
moonshotai logoKimi K343.6

Coding index

deepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 FlashNot available
moonshotai logoKimi K376.2

Agentic index

deepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 FlashNot available
moonshotai logoKimi K350

Pricing

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs Kimi K3 API pricing

Per-token API rates. Cheaper option highlighted.

Metricdeepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 Flashmoonshotai logoKimi K3
Input tokensPer 1M tokens$0.30$0.80
Output tokensPer 1M tokens$1.20$10
Cached input (read)Per 1M tokens$0.01$0.55
Cache writePer 1M tokensNot availableNot available

What it costs in practice

Estimated cost per 1,000 requests at standard rates. Coding and long-document figures also show the cost when the input is already cached.

Chat message

2K in, 500 out

deepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 Flash$1.20
moonshotai logoKimi K3$6.60

Coding task

30K in, 4K out

deepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 Flash$13.80$4.98 cached
moonshotai logoKimi K3$64$56.50 cached

Long document summary

150K in, 2K out

deepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 Flash$47.40$3.30 cached
moonshotai logoKimi K3$140$102.50 cached

Specs

Context window and capabilities

How much each model can read, how much it can write, and what it accepts as input.

Metricdeepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 Flashmoonshotai logoKimi K3
Context window1.05M tokens1.05M tokens
Max output944K tokens944K tokens
Input typesImage, TextImage, Text, Video
Output typesTextText
Reasoning effort levelsMax, High, LowMax, High, Low
Default reasoning effortHighMax
Release dateSeptember 10, 2026July 16, 2026

Features

Supported features

API features available for each model.

Metricdeepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 Flashmoonshotai logoKimi K3
Tool callingSupportedSupported
Structured outputsSupportedSupported
JSON modeSupportedSupported
ReasoningSupportedSupported
TemperatureSupportedSupported
Stop sequencesSupportedSupported
Deterministic seedSupportedSupported
Verbosity controlNot supportedNot supported

Our take

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is 5.5x cheaper for a typical chat. Kimi K3 scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (43.6 vs 39.5). The right pick depends on your workload, so the quickest way to settle it is to send the same prompt to both and compare.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Is DeepSeek V4.1 Flash or Kimi K3 cheaper?

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is cheaper for a typical chat (2K input tokens and 500 output tokens). DeepSeek V4.1 Flash costs $0.30 per 1M input tokens and $1.20 per 1M output tokens, while Kimi K3 costs $0.80 per 1M input tokens and $10 per 1M output tokens.

Which has a bigger context window, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash or Kimi K3?

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash supports up to 1.05M tokens of context, compared with 1.05M for Kimi K3.

Is DeepSeek V4.1 Flash smarter than Kimi K3?

On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash scores 39.5 and Kimi K3 scores 43.6, putting Kimi K3 ahead. Benchmarks don't capture everything, so the best test is running your own prompts through both.

Can I use DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and Kimi K3 at the same time?

Yes. Shortcut Chat sends one prompt to multiple models at once, so you can see DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and Kimi K3 answer side by side and keep the better response.

deepseek logomoonshotai logo

Why choose? Ask both.

Send one prompt to DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and Kimi K3 at the same time. Compare the answers side by side and keep the best one.