Kimi K2.6 places top-3 in 1 of 6 task areas we tested. It's strongest at customer support and weakest at chef / home cooking. It's a mid-priced option ($4.07/1M tokens).
Strengths
Weak spots
How Kimi K2.6 ranks, task by task
Rank is the position in each field; Rating is the absolute quality bar. A model can be rated "Excellent" yet sit mid-table when the whole field is strong — and vice-versa.
| Task area | Rank | Percentile | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer Support | #3 of 113 |
|
Strong |
| Coding | #5 of 115 |
|
Excellent |
| AI Strategy | #16 of 126 |
|
Strong |
| Data & Analytics | #22 of 110 |
|
Excellent |
| Content & Brand | #29 of 124 |
|
Strong |
| Chef / Home Cooking | #40 of 126 |
|
Usable |
Straight from the judges
A real graded run from Kimi K2.6's strongest area and its weakest — the judge's unedited words.
Payment failed
“The response is an excellent, production-ready template. It provides clear, actionable steps for resolving a payment failure while explicitly and proactively addressing security risks by warning the user not to send sensitive information via email. It is concise, well-organized, and maintains a professional tone.”
Serrano ham scrambled eggs
“The recipe features excellent flavour combinations and handles the prompt's constraints perfectly. However, it contains a major food safety hazard by reusing an unwashed raw-egg bowl for a no-cook yogurt sauce. All scores are capped below 5.5 due to this unsafe advice.”
Industry benchmarks
Standardized third-party scores, shown for context — these are independent of our real-task tests.
Artificial Analysis indices
Design Arena — human preference (avg Elo 1310)
Headline vs. real-world
Kimi K2.6 punches above its headline benchmarks — it ranks higher on our real-world tasks than its Intelligence Index would suggest.
Source: Artificial Analysis (artificialanalysis.ai) via OpenRouter (openrouter.ai/rankings). (2026-07-03) · Source: Design Arena (www.designarena.ai) via OpenRouter (openrouter.ai/rankings). (2026-07-03)
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Cheaper
No clear alternative.
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Frequently asked
Is Kimi K2.6 any good?
Kimi K2.6 places top-3 in 1 of 6 task areas we benchmarked, with a median percentile of 84. It performs best at Customer Support (#3 of 113).
What is Kimi K2.6 best at?
Its strongest task areas are Customer Support (#3), Coding (#5), AI Strategy (#16).
What is Kimi K2.6 bad at?
Its weakest area is Chef / Home Cooking, where it ranks #40 of 126 (usable).
Is Kimi K2.6 good for coding?
Kimi K2.6 ranks #5 of 115 in our Coding task area (excellent), performing best at medium reasoning effort.
How much does Kimi K2.6 cost?
Kimi K2.6 costs $0.66 per 1M input tokens and $3.41 per 1M output tokens ($4.07 blended).
How we test & rank
Each model is scored on real tasks across 6 task areas by an LLM judge with deterministic checks. "Percentile" is this model's standing within each area's field; the cross-area figures are rank-based so quality and Elo scores are never mixed.
This page is Spring Prompt, running
We just did this for every model. Do it for your prompt.
The rankings above come from running real tasks through real models and scoring every output. Spring Prompt is that same engine — pointed at your prompt, your test cases, and your definition of good.
- Generate test cases from your prompt — no eval set required to start.
- Compare models side by side with quality, cost and latency in one matrix.
- Optimise the winner until the scores say it's ready to ship.
Prompt × model results
12 test cases · 3 evals