Electricity Bench

Claude Max 5x vs Kimi Allegro

Claude Max 5x is our pick of the heavy band. Claude Max 5x costs $100/mo, 1x Kimi Allegro's $99/mo.

Our verdict

The Anthropic ladder. Every Claude plan is Claude Code on the same 5-hour rolling window, and a bigger rung buys a bigger allowance. The exception is Fable, which ships only on the Max tiers, so $20 buys Opus 5 and Sonnet 5 rather than the flagship. Our paired runs put the real 5x-to-20x gap nearer 5.7x than the advertised 4x.

The Moonshot AI ladder. Every Kimi tier runs the same open-weight K3 on the same credit mechanics, and the rungs are credit multiples of the $19 tier (roughly 2x, 5x and 10x its allowance). Pick a rung by how much you will use; the model is identical everywhere.

Claude Max 5x is our pick of the heavy band.

Claude Max 5x is for serious daily agent use without the top-tier price; Kimi Allegro is for daily use of an open-weight model you already like.

Claude Max 5x costs $100/mo, 1x Kimi Allegro's $99/mo.

We have not measured Claude Max 5x on its own plan; its card below points at the closest graded evidence.

We have not measured Kimi Allegro on its own plan; its card below points at the closest graded evidence.

AnthropicOur pick

Claude Max 5x

$100/mo per claude.com/pricing, 2026-08-12

Half the price of Max 20x for the same models, harness and 5-hour rolling window, and for one person running one agent hard this rung clears most days. Worth knowing: our paired runs put the real gap between 5x and 20x nearer 5.7x than the advertised 4x, so the top rung buys more than its label says.

Pros

  • The same models and window as the $200 tier
  • Clears most days of serious agent work
  • Half the price of the top rung

Cons

  • Not enough headroom for several agents at once
  • Same promotion caveat as the rest of the Claude ladder

Best for Serious daily agent use without the top-tier price.

How far it goes: we have not measured this plan

Same models and harness as Claude Max 20x on a quarter of the allowance - the Max 20x scorecards are the closest evidence.

The leaderboard lists every plan we do grade.

Moonshot AI

Kimi Allegro

$99/mo per kimi.com/pricing, 2026-08-12

The right tier for a daily Kimi habit, arriving at the wrong moment. Five times the credits sounds like the fix, but the thing that changed is the model: K3 does less than it did, and $99 of a weaker model is still a weaker model.

Pros

  • Five times the entry-tier credits
  • Enough allowance for daily use

Cons

  • Buying volume does not fix the model
  • Heavy use still burns credits quickly

Best for Daily use of an open-weight model you already like.

How far it goes: we have not measured this plan

No graded Kimi subject at the moment; see the leaderboard for graded alternatives.

The leaderboard lists every plan we do grade.

Verdicts and prices are the quiz's versioned editorial catalog, last reviewed 2026-08-20; usage figures come from our own published runs and stay a share of each plan's own allowance. Any other pair composes on the subscription comparison, and the quiz turns your answers into a recommendation.

Frequently asked questions

Which should I pick, Claude Max 5x or Kimi Allegro?

Claude Max 5x is our pick of the heavy band. Claude Max 5x is for serious daily agent use without the top-tier price; Kimi Allegro is for daily use of an open-weight model you already like.

How much do Claude Max 5x and Kimi Allegro cost?

Claude Max 5x costs $100/month (public price as of 2026-08-12); Kimi Allegro costs $99/month (public price as of 2026-08-12).