GLM 4.5 Air API pricing
Zhipu · Budget price tier · MIT · released 2025-07. Prices in USD per 1 million tokens. Data snapshot: 2026-11-12.
A support ticket workload of 100K requests a month costs $85.00 on GLM 4.5 Air; the next cheaper model in the Budget price tier for this workload, Qwen3.6 Flash, does it for $84.38. The price we quote for GLM 4.5 Air has changed once since 2026-08-15, most recently on 2026-11-09 when the quoted host changed (+30.9%); it is now the 119th cheapest of 160 models in the Budget price tier. Buying from Novita rather than at the price we quote lowers the token price by about 24%. It is rated a stable release but does not meet all four criteria of the FinOps Friendly badge.
- Input: $0.20 per 1M tokens
- Output: $1.10 per 1M tokens
- Batch API (in/out): Not published
- Prompt-cache read: $0.03 per 1M tokens
- Context window: 131K tokens
- Arena ELO: 1384 as of 2026-11-08
Market position
On blended price ($0.83 per 1M tokens at 30% input, 70% output) it is cheaper than 26% of models in the Budget price tier: 119th cheapest of 160. Across every price tier it is cheaper than 61% of priced text models in the catalogue: 119th cheapest of 303. Its Arena ELO of 1384 ranks 107th of the 160 models that carry one, tied with one other, above 33% of them. With an Arena score of 1384, GLM 4.5 Air sits below OptimNow's lowest working quality threshold, Standard (Arena 1420+), so the quality-bar method would not shortlist it for any of the 8 use cases the table prices. Each threshold is a distance below the best ranked model, which scores 1530 on Arena scores as of 8 Nov 2026.
Licence, size and capabilities
GLM 4.5 Air is open source: its weights are published under MIT, an OSI-approved licence with no field-of-use limit, so it can be self-hosted as well as bought by the token. Its parameter count is not published. Listed capabilities: Text, Reasoning, Agents. Filling its 131K context window once costs $0.0262 in input tokens at list price.
Pricing by host
A host is a company that runs the model and sells it by the token: the model maker, a cloud platform like Amazon Bedrock, Azure or Vertex, or an independent host. One model, several hosts, and often several prices. This model is sold by 3 different hosts. The price we quote elsewhere on this page is marked. We quote one host's rate so that models stay comparable; it is not a recommendation to buy there.
Cheapest host: Novita at $0.13 input / $0.85 output per 1M tokens, 24% below the price we quote on the blended price (30% input, 70% output). A support ticket workload at 100K requests a month costs $62.00 there against $85.00 at the price we quote, a difference of $23.00 a month. The dearest, Z.AI, charges 1.3x the cheapest.
| Host | Input $/1M | Output $/1M | Precision |
|---|---|---|---|
| Novita | $0.13 | $0.85 | bf16 |
| SiliconFlow | $0.14 | $0.86 | fp8 |
| Z.AI (model maker, price we quote) | $0.20 | $1.10 | fp8 |
List prices as published on 2026-11-12, via OpenRouter. Negotiated rates, committed-use discounts and provisioned capacity are not shown. These hosts do not all serve the model at the same numeric precision, so the cheapest is not a like-for-like substitute for the dearest.
Monthly cost at 100K requests, by business use case
From the after-discounts figure (prompt caching on the cached input share, batch API for async workloads, only where Zhipu publishes those rates), which assumes you implement both, to the list price. One figure means no discount is published.
| Use case | Tokens (in/out) | Monthly (after discounts – list) |
|---|---|---|
| Support Ticket | 1,500 / 500 | $70 – $85 |
| Knowledge Q&A | 2,000 / 800 | $104 – $128 |
| Meeting Summary | 10,000 / 1,200 | $315 – $332 |
| Marketing Content | 2,500 / 1,800 | $240 – $248 |
| Coding Task | 3,000 / 2,000 | $255 – $280 |
| Invoice Processing | 1,500 / 600 | $88 – $96 |
| Call Summary | 2,000 / 700 | $114 – $117 |
| Agent Workflow | 6,000 / 3,000 | $379 – $450 |
Price history
GLM 4.5 Air has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $0.13 input / $0.85 output per 1M tokens. The price we quote has changed once since then, and that was a change of quoted host rather than a repricing. The latest change, on 2026-11-09, was +30.9% on the blended price (30% input, 70% output), to $0.20 input / $1.10 output (quoted host changed, not a repricing).
| Date | Old price (in / out) | New price (in / out) | Blended change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-11-09 | $0.13 / $0.85 | $0.20 / $1.10 | +30.9% (quoted host changed, not a repricing) |
Alternatives to GLM 4.5 Air
3 of the 4 comparable models below cost less than GLM 4.5 Air: Qwen3 30B A3B Instruct 2507 undercuts it by 71%, at the same Arena score.
- Next cheaper model in the Budget price tier: Llama 4 Maverick (Meta) at $0.805 blended, 3% less.
- Next more expensive: MiniMax M2.5 (MiniMax) at $0.837 blended, 1% more.
The nearest models in the Budget price tier on Arena ELO, each with its blended price and score difference against GLM 4.5 Air.
- Qwen3 30B A3B Instruct 2507 (Alibaba): $0.10 in / $0.30 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1384 (71% cheaper, same Arena ELO)
- GPT-6 Luna (OpenAI): $0.10 in / $0.50 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1388 (54% cheaper, 4 ELO points higher)
- Solar Pro 4 (upstage): $0.15 in / $0.60 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1388 (44% cheaper, 4 ELO points higher)
- Muse Glimmer 30B (meta): $0.30 in / $1.20 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1389 (12% more expensive, 5 ELO points higher)
- Cheapest within 15 Arena points: Qwen3.5-Flash (Alibaba), 76% cheaper, 13 ELO points higher, out of 21 models in that band.
- Highest Arena ELO within 20% of this price: MiMo-V2.6-Pro (Xiaomi), 11% cheaper, 108 ELO points higher, out of 22 models in that price band.
Other models from Zhipu
The 8 nearest to GLM 4.5 Air in price, of 16 other Zhipu models in the catalogue. Prices per 1M tokens, input then output.
- GLM 5.3 Flash: $0.0399 / $0.0784
- GLM 4.7 Flash: $0.0605 / $0.40
- GLM 4.6V: $0.30 / $0.90
- GLM 5.3 FlashX: $0.37 / $1.25
- GLM 5.3 FlashX Legal: $0.37 / $1.25
- GLM 5.3: $0.0699 / $1.40
- GLM 4.5V: $0.60 / $1.80
- GLM 4.6: $0.50 / $2.00
All 17 Zhipu models and prices
Common questions about GLM 4.5 Air pricing
- How much does GLM 4.5 Air cost?
- GLM 4.5 Air costs $0.20 per 1M input tokens and $1.10 per 1M output tokens. That is the model maker's own rate (Z.AI). Prices as listed on 2026-11-12.
- Which host is cheapest for GLM 4.5 Air?
- Cheapest host: Novita at $0.13 input / $0.85 output per 1M tokens, 24% below the price we quote on the blended price (30% input, 70% output). A support ticket workload at 100K requests a month costs $62.00 there against $85.00 at the price we quote, a difference of $23.00 a month. The dearest, Z.AI, charges 1.3x the cheapest. Host rates as listed on 2026-11-12.
- Does GLM 4.5 Air offer batch or cached pricing?
- Yes, for prompt caching only. Cache reads cost $0.03 per 1M tokens, as listed on 2026-11-12. No batch pricing is published.
- What would GLM 4.5 Air cost per month?
- With the Support Ticket profile (1,500 input and 500 output tokens per request), 100,000 requests a month cost about $85 on GLM 4.5 Air at the list price quoted on 2026-11-12.
- Can GLM 4.5 Air be self-hosted?
- Yes. GLM 4.5 Air is open source: its weights are published under MIT, an OSI-approved licence with no field-of-use limit, so it can be self-hosted as well as bought by the token.
- Has the price of GLM 4.5 Air changed?
- GLM 4.5 Air has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $0.13 input / $0.85 output per 1M tokens. The price we quote has changed once since then, and that was a change of quoted host rather than a repricing. The latest change, on 2026-11-09, was +30.9% on the blended price (30% input, 70% output), to $0.20 input / $1.10 output (quoted host changed, not a repricing).
Its weights are published, which changes what you may run yourself: the cost gap between open weights and proprietary APIs.
These are list prices. Your real cost also depends on caching and batching, negotiated discounts, marketplace agreements, and the contracts you already have. OptimNow audits exactly that.
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