MiniMax M2.5 vs Kimi K3.1 Pro

Practical read: MiniMax M2.5 costs about a seventh as much. Kimi K3.1 Pro reads five times more context. One API key runs both.

No card required. Start with 1 million free tokens.

Side by side:

MiniMax M2.5 compared with MoonshotAI: Kimi K3.1 Pro
Attribute	MiniMax M2.5 `minimax/minimax-m25`	Kimi K3.1 Pro `moonshotai/kimi-k3.1-pro`
Price, 1M in + out	$1.29 Venice, cheapest route	$8.86 Engy, cheapest route
Best for	Low cost	Long documents
Input / output, 1M	$0.28 / $1.00	$1.48 / $7.38
Cached input	$0.03165/1M	$0.1477/1M to $0.422/1M
Context window	198K 198,000 tokens	1.05M 1,048,576 tokens
First token, p50	Measuring	0.94 s via Telnyx
AI IQ	Unrated	IQ 132 #14 on AI IQ
Provider routes	1	15 with failover
Privacy	Varies by provider	Confidential E2EE and zero retention route
Recent route uptime range	not enough data	100.00%
Publisher	MiniMax	Kimi
Modes	chat	chat
More detail	Overview	Overview Pricing Providers

Price adds one million input and one million output tokens on the cheapest route. Prices and speed change: see the monthly reports and run a small eval before you choose a default.

Test both with your agent

Paste this into Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent.

Compare MiniMax M2.5 and Kimi K3.1 Pro in this project through TrustedRouter.

1. Read https://trustedrouter.com/docs/llms.txt
2. Point the OpenAI-compatible client at
   https://api.trustedrouter.com/v1 and read the key from
   TRUSTEDROUTER_API_KEY.
3. Run our eval prompts on minimax/minimax-m25, then on moonshotai/kimi-k3.1-pro.
4. Show me cost, latency and quality side by side before changing the default.

import os
from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://api.trustedrouter.com/v1",
    api_key=os.environ["TRUSTEDROUTER_API_KEY"],
)
for model in ("minimax/minimax-m25", "moonshotai/kimi-k3.1-pro"):
    response = client.chat.completions.create(
        model=model,
        messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "What is the capital of France?"}],
    )
    print(model, response.choices[0].message.content)

for model in minimax/minimax-m25 moonshotai/kimi-k3.1-pro; do
  curl https://api.trustedrouter.com/v1/chat/completions \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRUSTEDROUTER_API_KEY" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d "{\"model\": \"$model\", \"messages\": [{\"role\": \"user\", \"content\": \"What is the capital of France?\"}]}"
done

Your agent will need an API key.

Questions

Which should I use, MiniMax M2.5 or MoonshotAI: Kimi K3.1 Pro?

MiniMax M2.5 has the lower published input-plus-output rate. MoonshotAI: Kimi K3.1 Pro has more Credits provider routes and the larger context window. There is not enough recent probe data to compare speed.

Is MiniMax M2.5 or MoonshotAI: Kimi K3.1 Pro cheaper?

The current cheapest TrustedRouter route is $1.2871/1M for MiniMax M2.5 and $8.862/1M for MoonshotAI: Kimi K3.1 Pro. The comparison uses current catalog prices and updates as provider pricing changes.

Is MiniMax M2.5 or MoonshotAI: Kimi K3.1 Pro faster?

Current measured p50 time to first token is not enough data for MiniMax M2.5 and 936 ms for MoonshotAI: Kimi K3.1 Pro. These are routed probe measurements, not vendor-advertised speeds, and update as new samples arrive.

Can I test MiniMax M2.5 and MoonshotAI: Kimi K3.1 Pro with the same API?

Yes. Use the same OpenAI-compatible TrustedRouter base URL and API key, then change only the model id between minimax/minimax-m25 and moonshotai/kimi-k3.1-pro. This makes side-by-side evals possible without maintaining two provider integrations.

More comparisons

All comparisons

Try MiniMax M2.5 and Kimi K3.1 Pro with one key.

TrustedRouter is useful when you know the model you want, but still need provider rollover, budget limits, usage records, and a prompt path you can verify.

No card required. Start with 1 million free tokens.