MiniMax M3 Preview vs Kimi K3.1 Pro
Practical read: MiniMax M3 Preview costs about a sixth as much. Kimi K3.1 Pro reads two times more context. One API key runs both.
No card required. Start with 1 million free tokens.
Side by side:
| Attribute | MiniMax M3 Preview | Kimi K3.1 Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Price, 1M in + out | $1.58 Venice, cheapest route | $8.86 Engy, cheapest route |
| Best for | Low cost | Long documents |
| Input / output, 1M | $0.32 / $1.27 | $1.48 / $7.38 |
| Cached input | $0.0633/1M | $0.1477/1M to $0.422/1M |
| Context window | 524K 524,288 tokens | 1.05M 1,048,576 tokens |
| First token, p50 | Measuring | 0.94 s via Telnyx |
| AI IQ | IQ 114 #64 on AI IQ | 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 |
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 M3 Preview 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-m3-preview, 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-m3-preview", "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-m3-preview 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?\"}]}"
doneQuestions
Which should I use, MiniMax M3 Preview or MoonshotAI: Kimi K3.1 Pro?
MiniMax M3 Preview 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 M3 Preview or MoonshotAI: Kimi K3.1 Pro cheaper?
The current cheapest TrustedRouter route is $1.5825/1M for MiniMax M3 Preview and $8.862/1M for MoonshotAI: Kimi K3.1 Pro. The comparison uses current catalog prices and updates as provider pricing changes.
Is MiniMax M3 Preview or MoonshotAI: Kimi K3.1 Pro faster?
Current measured p50 time to first token is not enough data for MiniMax M3 Preview 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 M3 Preview 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-m3-preview and moonshotai/kimi-k3.1-pro. This makes side-by-side evals possible without maintaining two provider integrations.
More comparisons
All comparisonsTry MiniMax M3 Preview 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.