Kimi K2.6 vs MiniMax M2
Benchmarks, API pricing and specs, head to head. Data updated 2026-06-10.
Kimi K2.6
Moonshot AI · Apr 2026
Moonshot's multimodal flagship that ties GPT-5.5 on several coding evaluations at a fraction of the price, with open weights.
MiniMax M2
68.9MiniMax · Oct 2025
A 10B-active MoE tuned purely for agents and code — striking capability-per-active-parameter at rock-bottom prices.
The verdict
Kimi K2.6 wins 1 of the 1 benchmarks these models share, against 0 for MiniMax M2. On price the gap is dramatic: MiniMax M2 works out roughly 3.3x cheaper per blended million tokens. Kimi K2.6 also takes 262K of context versus 205K for MiniMax M2.
Benchmark head-to-head 1–0
Specs & pricing
| Kimi K2.6 | MiniMax M2 | |
|---|---|---|
| modhub Index | — | 68.9 |
| Input price / 1M | $0.95 | $0.3 |
| Output price / 1M | $4 | $1.2 |
| Context window | 262K | 205K |
| Max output | 262K | — |
| Open weights | yes (Modified MIT) | yes (MIT) |
| Reasoning model | yes | yes |
| Multimodal input | text, image | text |
| Knowledge cutoff | Feb 2026 | Jun 2025 |
| Released | Apr 2026 | Oct 2025 |
| Example monthly cost* | $15.50 | $4.80 |
* 10M input + 1.5M output tokens per month at list prices, no caching. Green = better value on that row.
Frequently asked questions
- Which is better, Kimi K2.6 or MiniMax M2?
- Kimi K2.6 wins 1 of the 1 benchmarks these models share, against 0 for MiniMax M2. On price the gap is dramatic: MiniMax M2 works out roughly 3.3x cheaper per blended million tokens. Kimi K2.6 also takes 262K of context versus 205K for MiniMax M2.
- Which is cheaper, Kimi K2.6 or MiniMax M2?
- Kimi K2.6 costs $0.95/$4 per million input/output tokens, while MiniMax M2 costs $0.3/$1.2. For a typical workload of 10M input and 1.5M output tokens per month, that's $15.50 versus $4.80.
- Which model is better for coding, Kimi K2.6 or MiniMax M2?
- On SWE-bench Verified — the standard agentic-coding benchmark — Kimi K2.6 scores ~82.5% versus 69.4% for MiniMax M2, making Kimi K2.6 the stronger pick for coding agents.