Kimi API platform
Programmatic access on platform.moonshot.ai, billed per token, not as a chat seat.
What the Kimi API platform is
The Kimi API platform is Moonshot AI's developer console, linked from the K2 model card as https://platform.moonshot.ai. It is how your own program sends a prompt and receives a completion. The Hugging Face card for Kimi-K2-Instruct-0905 says Moonshot provides an OpenAI-compatible API and an Anthropic-compatible API. A search for Kimi API platform is this console, not the chat login.
Compatibility means a client written for those APIs can point at Moonshot's base URL and a Kimi model name. It does not mean the request is served by OpenAI or Anthropic. You still create the key on Moonshot's platform, and you still pay Moonshot's token rates for that model.
API bill versus app membership
A Kimi subscription pays for the app: chat, agents, slides, Kimi Code inside Kimi's products. The API bill pays for tokens your software consumes. Kimi's K2.7 Code pricing page says to use the API when you are building a tool, a pipeline, or an internal platform, and to use a membership (it cites plans starting at $19 a month) when you want Kimi Code in a terminal or IDE without managing keys.
Those are different meters. Spending the membership credit pool does not, by itself, refill an API balance, and an API key does not unlock Kimi Claw or Agent Swarm inside the consumer app. If you only need to draft Python for yourself, the code generator notes are about prompting. If you are shipping a product, you need the platform key and a spend limit.
A published K2.7 Code rate card
On the K2.7 Code pricing page checked 25 September 2026, kimi-k2.7-code is listed per 1 million tokens at $0.19 input on a cache hit, $0.95 input on a cache miss, and $4.00 output, with a 262,144 token context. The highspeed variant on the same table is $0.38, $1.90, and $8.00. Cache hit means the prefix was already cached, so the input portion costs less. Output is what the model writes back.
Older checkpoints have their own rates, and third-party hosts republish numbers that are not Moonshot's invoice. For K2 0905 and K2.6 as model names, read Kimi K2 and then the live price on platform.moonshot.ai. The model card also notes that the Anthropic-compatible route maps temperature by multiplying the requested temperature by 0.6. If a ported client feels cold or hot, that scale is the first place to look.
Questions
- Where do I create a Kimi API key?
- On Moonshot's platform at platform.moonshot.ai. The key belongs to that account. Do not paste it into Kimi chat or into source code you push.
- Does Kimi pricing include the API?
- The $19 to $199 memberships on the help-center table are for the Kimi product. API use is billed per token on the platform. Kimi's K2.7 Code page treats them as a choice, not as one invoice.
- Which model name should I send?
- Send the id your console lists. kimi-k2.7-code and kimi-k2.7-code-highspeed are the ids on the K2.7 Code price table. K2 0905 is an earlier instruct checkpoint, documented on Hugging Face as Kimi-K2-Instruct-0905.
- Is the API OpenAI?
- Moonshot documents an OpenAI-compatible and an Anthropic-compatible shape. The model and the bill are Moonshot's. You change the base URL and the key, then keep the client code.
Keep reading
Sources
Checked 2026-09-25. Prices and limits can change on the live help pages.