How much does GLM 5.3 cost per million tokens?

GLM 5.3 costs $0.222 per million input tokens and $3.39 per million output tokens at list price, and $0.177 per million cached input tokens.

What is the context window of GLM 5.3?

GLM 5.3 accepts up to 1,048,576 tokens of context and returns up to 943,718 output tokens.

How much do 1,000 chat messages cost with GLM 5.3?

About $1.92, assuming 1,000 input + 500 output tokens per message.

Is there a cheaper alternative to GLM 5.3?

In the same price range, OpenAI GPT-6 Luna Pro ($0.1 / $0.5), OpenAI GPT-6 Luna ($0.1 / $0.5), Qwen Qwen3.8 Omni Flash ($0.15 / $0.47) cost less per token. Quality differs: test on your own prompts.

Where can I buy Z.ai API credits for less?

Discount credit books resell OpenRouter usage below face value within their depth, OpenRouter adds a 5.5% card fee, and Z.ai sells its own credits at face value. The live table on this page ranks them for $100 of usage.

Z.ai · live price

GLM 5.3 API pricing

GLM-5.3 is a large-scale reasoning model from Z.ai, built for complex software engineering and long-horizon agent tasks. It supports text input and output with a 1M-token context window, and improves...

Mid-range ($1–5 per 1M)Tool callingReasoning

Input: $0.222; per 1M tokens
Output: $3.39; per 1M tokens
Cached input: $0.177; per 1M tokens
Context: 1.0M; 944K max output

List price from OpenRouter, which passes Z.ai's price through without markup. Refreshed hourly. Released August 18, 2026. Model id z-ai/glm-5.3.

What GLM 5.3 costs in practice

At list price, before any batch or caching discount.

1,000 chat messages

$1.92

1,000 input + 500 output tokens each

1,000 RAG questions

$3.47

8,000 input + 500 output tokens each

100 coding-agent steps

$1.34

30,000 input + 2,000 output tokens each, no caching

GLM 5.3 price history

No price change since we started tracking on 2026-10-01. We record prices daily; changes will show here.

GLM 5.3 price by host

Baidu serves it below list price right now. Route to it to pay less on every token.

Baidu$0.155 in · $0.488 out · 1.0M ctx · 98.4% uptime 24h
Reka$0.37 in · $1.14 out · 262K ctx · 99.8% uptime 24h
Morph$0.06 in · $2.69 out · 1.0M ctx · 98.3% uptime 24h
SiliconFlow$0.7 in · $2.20 out · 1.0M ctx · 100.0% uptime 24h
DeepInfra$0.563 in · $2.50 out · 1.0M ctx · 99.1% uptime 24h
Novita$0.783 in · $2.46 out · 1.0M ctx · 100.0% uptime 24h
Phala$0.84 in · $2.64 out · 1.0M ctx · 99.3% uptime 24h
Sail Research$0.2 in · $3.40 out · 1.0M ctx · 95.4% uptime 24h
Wafer$0.222 in · $3.39 out · 1.0M ctx · 99.6% uptime 24h
DigitalOcean$0.91 in · $2.86 out · 1.0M ctx · 100.0% uptime 24h
Inceptron$0.6 in · $3.39 out · 1.0M ctx · 99.3% uptime 24h
GMICloud$0.98 in · $3.08 out · 1.0M ctx · 99.7% uptime 24h
Relace$0.145 in · $4 out · 1.0M ctx · 99.7% uptime 24h
AkashML$1.05 in · $3.56 out · 1.0M ctx · 99.9% uptime 24h
InferenceNet$0.24 in · $4.40 out · 1.0M ctx · 99.3% uptime 24h
Makora$0.85 in · $3.93 out · 980K ctx · 98.4% uptime 24h
Alibaba$1.19 in · $3.74 out · 1M ctx · 99.9% uptime 24h
Decart$1.19 in · $3.74 out · 1.0M ctx · 99.7% uptime 24h
Friendli$1.26 in · $3.96 out · 1.0M ctx · 100.0% uptime 24h
Mistral$1.40 in · $4.40 out · 1.0M ctx · 99.9% uptime 24h
BaseTen$1.40 in · $4.40 out · 1.0M ctx · 99.8% uptime 24h
Crusoe$1.40 in · $4.40 out · 1.0M ctx · 99.9% uptime 24h
PrimeIntellect$1.40 in · $4.40 out · 1.0M ctx · 100.0% uptime 24h
Venice$1.40 in · $4.40 out · 1M ctx · 99.4% uptime 24h
Together$1.40 in · $4.40 out · 1.0M ctx · 97.2% uptime 24h
Parasail$1.40 in · $4.40 out · 1.0M ctx · 99.6% uptime 24h
Modal$1.40 in · $4.40 out · 1.0M ctx · 98.5% uptime 24h
Fireworks$1.40 in · $4.40 out · 1.0M ctx · 99.1% uptime 24h
Cloudflare$1.40 in · $4.40 out · 1.0M ctx · 99.5% uptime 24h
AtlasCloud$1.40 in · $4.40 out · 1.0M ctx · 99.9% uptime 24h
Z.AI$1.40 in · $4.40 out · 1.0M ctx · 99.8% uptime 24h

Where to buy Z.ai credits for less

GLM 5.3 costs the same per token everywhere it's sold through OpenRouter. What changes is the price of the credits. Live quotes for $100 of usage:

#	Where you buy	You payYou pay for $100.00 of usage	vs list price	Price source
1	OrbioCardCheapest right now Credits from a discount book, plus a 5% platform fee and card processing, both included in the quote.	$85.10 incl. $2.60 card processing	-14.9%	live quote
2	smaaartCard Credits from a discount book, plus a 5% platform fee on face value. Card processing and taxes shown at checkout.	$95.00 + card processing and tax at checkout (not in this number)	-5.0%	live quote
3	Direct from the labCard Prepaid credits at face value (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google…). Taxes may apply.	$100.00 no top-up fee	list price	face value
4	OpenRouterCrypto 5% on crypto purchases. No markup on model prices.	$105.00 fees included	+5.0%	published fee
5	OpenRouterCard 5.5% on card purchases, $0.80 minimum. No markup on model prices.	$105.50 fees included	+5.5%	published fee

Disclosure: this site is run by the team behind smaaart, one of the options compared. Tables are ranked by price only, from live quotes and published fees, including when smaaart isn't first. How we compare

GLM 5.3 cost calculator

Enter your monthly tokens to price your own usage.

Model$0.222 in / $3.39 out per 1M tokens · list price, liveInput tokens / month (millions)Output tokens / month (millions)

Usage at list price$45.00/ month(quotes below are for $45.00: purchases run from $5.00 to $10,000.00)

Cheaper alternatives to GLM 5.3

Other labs' models in the same price range or the one below, cheaper per token.

Model	Input / 1M	Output / 1M	Blended 3:1	Context
OpenAI: GPT-6 Luna Pro	$0.1	$0.5	$0.2	1.1M
OpenAI: GPT-6 Luna	$0.1	$0.5	$0.2	1.1M
Qwen: Qwen3.8 Omni Flash	$0.15	$0.47	$0.23	1M
DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash	$0.03	$0.5	$0.147	1.0M
Qwen: Qwen3.8 Flash	$0.15	$0.47	$0.23	1M
DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp	$0.216	$0.647	$0.323	1.0M

Other Z.ai models

Model	Input / 1M	Output / 1M	Blended 3:1	Context
GLM 5.3 Flash	$0.15	$0.5	$0.237	1.0M
GLM 5.3 FlashX	$0.37	$1.25	$0.59	1.0M
GLM 5.3 Prime	$2.80	$8.80	$4.30	1M
GLM 5.2	$1.40	$4.40	$2.15	1.0M
GLM 5.1	$0.965	$3.03	$1.48	205K
GLM 5V Turbo	$1.20	$4	$1.90	203K

All Z.ai API prices