GLM 4.6 API Pricing
Zhipu · Budget · Apache 2.0 · released 2025-09. Prices in USD per 1 million tokens. Data snapshot: 2026-09-28.
The price we publish for GLM 4.6 has changed 6 times since 2026-08-15, most recently on 2026-09-09 when the reference host changed (-20.6%); it is now the 134th cheapest of 142 Budget models. None of its 4 hosts undercuts the price quoted here. No Arena score is published for it, so it carries no Efficiency score and cannot hold the FinOps Friendly badge.
- Input: $0.43 per 1M tokens
- Output: $1.75 per 1M tokens
- Batch API (input/output): not published
- Prompt-cache read: $0.08
- Context window: 205K
GLM 4.6 market position
On blended price ($1.35 per 1M tokens at 30% input, 70% output) it is cheaper than 6% of Budget models: 134th cheapest of 142. Across every category it is cheaper than 53% of priced text models in the catalogue: 134th cheapest of 281.
GLM 4.6 licence, size and capabilities
GLM 4.6 is open source: its weights are published under Apache 2.0, 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, Code, Agents. Filling its 205K context window once costs $0.09 in input tokens at list price.
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 the provider 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 | $121 – $152 |
| Knowledge Q&A | 2,000 / 800 | $177 – $226 |
| Meeting Summary | 10,000 / 1,200 | $605 – $640 |
| Marketing Content | 2,500 / 1,800 | $405 – $422 |
| Coding Task | 3,000 / 2,000 | $426 – $479 |
| Invoice Processing | 1,500 / 600 | $154 – $170 |
| Call Summary | 2,000 / 700 | $202 – $209 |
| Agent Workflow | 6,000 / 3,000 | $636 – $783 |
GLM 4.6 pricing by host
A host is a company that runs the model and sells it by the token — the lab that made it, a cloud platform like Amazon Bedrock, Azure or Vertex, or an independent provider. One model, several sellers, and often several prices. This model is sold by 4 different hosts. The price quoted above is the one we publish so that models stay comparable; it is not necessarily the cheapest way to buy this model. List prices as published on 2026-09-28 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.
The price we publish is already the cheapest of the 4 hosts: Venice at $0.43 input / $1.75 output per 1M tokens. It serves a quantized fp4 build, which is not the same product as the full-precision model. The dearest, Z.AI, charges 1.3x the cheapest.
| Host | Input $/1M | Output $/1M |
|---|---|---|
| Venice (the price shown above) — fp4 | $0.43 | $1.75 |
| DeepInfra — fp4 | $0.50 | $2.00 |
| Novita — bf16 | $0.55 | $2.20 |
| Z.AI — fp4 | $0.60 | $2.20 |
GLM 4.6 price history
GLM 4.6 has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $0.55 input / $2.20 output per 1M tokens. The price we publish has changed 6 times since then, 4 of them a change of reference host rather than a repricing. The latest change, on 2026-09-09, was -20.6% on the blended price (30% input, 70% output), to $0.43 input / $1.75 output (reference host changed, not a repricing). Net of all changes, the blended price is -20.6% against 2026-08-15.
| Date | Old price (in / out) | New price (in / out) | Blended change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-09 | $0.55 / $2.20 | $0.43 / $1.75 | -20.6% (reference host changed, not a repricing) |
| 2026-09-08 | $0.43 / $1.75 | $0.55 / $2.20 | +25.9% (reference host changed, not a repricing) |
| 2026-09-07 | $0.55 / $2.20 | $0.43 / $1.75 | -20.6% (reference host changed, not a repricing) |
| 2026-09-03 | $0.43 / $1.75 | $0.55 / $2.20 | +25.9% (reference host changed, not a repricing) |
| 2026-08-27 | $0.50 / $2.00 | $0.43 / $1.75 | -12.6% |
1 earlier change is not listed.
Alternatives to GLM 4.6
- Next cheaper Budget model: Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 (Alibaba) at $1.35 blended, under 1% less.
- Next more expensive: Aion-2.0 (aion-labs) at $1.36 blended, under 1% more.
Common questions about GLM 4.6 pricing
- How much does GLM 4.6 cost?
- GLM 4.6 costs $0.43 per million input tokens and $1.75 per million output tokens on the API.
- Does GLM 4.6 offer batch or cached pricing?
- Prompt-cache reads cost $0.08/M input tokens. No batch pricing is published.
- What would GLM 4.6 cost per month?
- For a support-ticket workload (1,500 input + 500 output tokens per request) at 100K requests/month, GLM 4.6 costs about $152 at list prices.
- Has the price of GLM 4.6 changed?
- GLM 4.6 has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $0.55 input / $2.20 output per 1M tokens. The price we publish has changed 6 times since then, 4 of them a change of reference host rather than a repricing. The latest change, on 2026-09-09, was -20.6% on the blended price (30% input, 70% output), to $0.43 input / $1.75 output (reference host changed, not a repricing). Net of all changes, the blended price is -20.6% against 2026-08-15.
These are list prices: real cost also depends on caching, batching, negotiated discounts, marketplace agreements, and existing contracts. Get a FinOps review from OptimNow or compare all models.
Build the business case for GLM 4.6 in the AI ROI Calculator: add your business value on top of these costs to get ROI, break-even and payback.
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