Kimi K2 Instruct vs Claude Haiku 4.5
Claude Haiku 4.5 comes out ahead, 57 to 50 on our weighted score, though Kimi K2 Instruct is 2× cheaper per token.
Moonshot AIKimi K2 Instruct
50/100- ECI139.9
- Price$0.57 / $2.30
- Context131K
- Our pick
AnthropicClaude Haiku 4.5
57/100- ECI142.2
- Price$1.00 / $5.00
- Context200K
Add a model
Make it a three-way comparison.
Claude Haiku 4.5 is our pick
Claude Haiku 4.5 is the better all-round choice, scoring 57/100 against Kimi K2 Instruct (50). It leads on capability, inputs & features and context window. Kimi K2 Instruct wins on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
- CapabilityClaude Haiku 4.5Capabilities Index (ECI): Claude Haiku 4.5 142.2 · Kimi K2 Instruct 139.9
- Lowest priceKimi K2 InstructKimi K2 Instruct $1.00 · Claude Haiku 4.5 $2.00 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
- Longest contextClaude Haiku 4.5Claude Haiku 4.5 200,000 · Kimi K2 Instruct 131,072 tokens
- Widest inputsClaude Haiku 4.5Kimi K2 Instruct: Text · Claude Haiku 4.5: Text, Images, PDFs
- Self-hostingKimi K2 InstructPublishes downloadable weights (Modified MIT)
| Measure | Weight | Kimi K2 Instruct | Claude Haiku 4.5 |
|---|---|---|---|
| CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI) | 50% | 64 | 67 |
| Price | 25% | 48 | 34 |
| Inputs & features | 15% | 25 | 80 |
| Context window | 10% | 25 | 32 |
| Overall | 100% | 50/100 | 57/100 |
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Kimi K2 InstructMoonshot AI | Claude Haiku 4.5Anthropic |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | ||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | 139.9 | 142.2 (best) |
| ECI rank | #112 of 165 | #102 of 165 (best) |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | — | 71.2% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | — | 66.7% |
| SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions | — | 13.2% |
| Price per million tokens | ||
| Input | $0.57 (best) | $1.00 |
| Output | $2.30 (best) | $5.00 |
| Cached input | — | $0.10 |
| Blended (3:1) | $1.00 (best) | $2.00 |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate |
| Price source | Median of 11 providers | Official Anthropic API |
| Limits | ||
| Context window | 131,072 tokens | 200,000 tokens (best) |
| Max output | 32,768 tokens | 64,000 tokens (best) |
| Inputs and features | ||
| Text | Yes | Yes |
| Images | No | Yes |
| PDFs | No | Yes |
| Audio | No | No |
| Video | No | No |
| Reasoning | No | Yes |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | No | Yes |
| Availability | ||
| Weights | OpenModified MIT | Proprietary |
| API model ID | — | claude-haiku-4-5 |
| API providers | 11 | 48 (best) |
| Released | Jul 11, 2025 | Oct 15, 2025 |
| Knowledge cutoff | — | Feb 28, 2025 |
What would a month cost?
Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.
- Kimi K2 Instruct$10.30
- Claude Haiku 4.5$20.00
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Kimi K2 Instruct or Claude Haiku 4.5?
Claude Haiku 4.5 is the better all-round choice, scoring 57/100 against Kimi K2 Instruct (50). It leads on capability, inputs & features and context window. Kimi K2 Instruct wins on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
Which is cheaper, Kimi K2 Instruct or Claude Haiku 4.5?
Kimi K2 Instruct is cheaper at $0.57 input / $2.30 output per million tokens (median across 11 API providers). Claude Haiku 4.5 costs $1.00 input / $5.00 output per million tokens (official Anthropic API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $1.00 per million tokens for Kimi K2 Instruct versus $2.00 for Claude Haiku 4.5 (2× as much).
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
Claude Haiku 4.5 scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Claude Haiku 4.5 142.2 (#102 of 165) and Kimi K2 Instruct 139.9 (#112 of 165). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (139.4–143.9 vs 136.3–141.6), so treat the gap as small.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Kimi K2 Instruct and Claude Haiku 4.5 yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Claude Haiku 4.5 leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. Both support tool calling for agent workflows.
Which has the bigger context window?
Claude Haiku 4.5 has the largest context window at 200,000 tokens, against 131,072 for Kimi K2 Instruct. Maximum output per response: Kimi K2 Instruct up to 32,768, Claude Haiku 4.5 up to 64,000 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Kimi K2 Instruct accepts text; Claude Haiku 4.5 accepts text, images and PDFs. Claude Haiku 4.5 handles the widest range of inputs.
Are any of these open source?
Kimi K2 Instruct publishes its weights (Modified MIT) and can be self-hosted; Claude Haiku 4.5 is proprietary.
Which is newer?
Claude Haiku 4.5 is the newest, released Oct 15, 2025. Kimi K2 Instruct came out Jul 11, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Claude Haiku 4.5 Feb 28, 2025.
How do you decide the winner?
Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Nov 2, 2026.
Related comparisons
- Add Gemini 2.5 FlashThree-way comparison
- Kimi K2 Instruct vs Gemini 2.5 FlashGoogle · ECI 140.6
- Kimi K2 Instruct vs DeepSeek R1 0528DeepSeek · ECI 141.2
- Kimi K2 Instruct vs Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507Alibaba (Qwen) · ECI 143.8
- Kimi K2 Instruct vs GLM-4.7Z.ai (Zhipu) · ECI 143.7
- Claude Haiku 4.5 vs GLM-4.7Z.ai (Zhipu) · ECI 143.7
- Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Mistral Medium 3.5Mistral AI · ECI 141.5
