# Moonshot AI Kimi K3 API

> Kimi K3 is Moonshot AI's flagship model, a 2.8-trillion-parameter open-weight mixture-of-experts model with native visual understanding and a 1M-token context. It is built on Kimi Delta Attention, a hybrid linear attention, plus Attention Residuals, and always runs in thinking mode with selectable effort. Moonshot positions it for long-horizon coding across large codebases and terminal tools, visual software tasks such as frontend and game work, and end-to-end knowledge work.

Source: https://www.sandbase.ai/model/moonshotai/kimi-k3
API reference: https://www.sandbase.ai/model/moonshotai/kimi-k3/docs

## Facts

- Provider: Moonshot AI
- Type: Language model
- Model ID: `moonshotai/kimi-k3`
- Price: $2.70 per 1M input tokens, $13.50 per 1M output tokens (10% off list price)
- Context window: 1M tokens, up to 131.1K output tokens
- Capabilities: chat, vision, reasoning, structured output, function calling
- Billing: pay per use from one SandBase balance; no provider account or subscription needed

## Call it

- Chat Completions API: `POST https://api.sandbase.ai/v1/chat/completions`

```bash
curl -X POST https://api.sandbase.ai/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SANDBASE_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
  "model": "moonshotai/kimi-k3",
  "messages": [
    {
      "role": "user",
      "content": "Hello"
    }
  ],
  "max_tokens": 2048
}'
```

## FAQ

### How do I call Moonshot AI Kimi K3 through SandBase?

Create a SandBase API key, then send requests with the model ID "moonshotai/kimi-k3" to Chat Completions API (/v1/chat/completions) at https://api.sandbase.ai. The request examples on this page show the exact payload.

### How much does Moonshot AI Kimi K3 cost?

$2.70 per 1M input tokens and $13.50 per 1M output tokens with the current 10% discount (list price $3 / $15), billed per request from your SandBase balance.

### What is the context window of Moonshot AI Kimi K3?

1M tokens of context, with up to 131.1K output tokens per response.

### How does Moonshot AI Kimi K3 score on benchmarks?

Moonshot AI Kimi K3 scores 43.6 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (v4.3), ranking #15 of 83 models on SandBase; Coding Index 76.2, Agentic Index 50.0. Source: Artificial Analysis, measured as Kimi K3 (Max).

### Which features does Moonshot AI Kimi K3 support?

Moonshot AI Kimi K3 supports vision (image input), reasoning, function calling, structured output. See Specifications above for the full list.

### Do I need a separate Moonshot AI account?

No. One SandBase API key and balance gives you access to Moonshot AI Kimi K3 and the other models in the catalog; you do not need to sign up with Moonshot AI separately.