GLM 5.3 API Pricing
Zhipu · Mid-tier · Apache 2.0 · released 2026-08. Prices in USD per 1 million tokens. Data snapshot: 2026-10-02.
The price we publish for GLM 5.3 has changed 9 times since 2026-08-19, most recently on 2026-09-27 when the reference host changed (+269.0%); it is now the 62nd cheapest of 110 Mid-tier models. Buying from Baidu rather than at the rate quoted here lowers the token price by about 89%, for a quantized fp8 build. It holds the FinOps Friendly badge: top-40% Arena quality, top-30% Efficiency, not among the dearest 30%, and no stability flag.
- Input: $1.40 per 1M tokens
- Output: $4.40 per 1M tokens
- Batch API (input/output): $0.45 / $2.00
- Prompt-cache read: $0.14
- Context window: 1M
- Arena ELO: 1480 (as of 2026-09-25)
GLM 5.3 market position
On blended price ($3.50 per 1M tokens at 30% input, 70% output) it is cheaper than 44% of Mid-tier models: 62nd cheapest of 110. Across every category it is cheaper than 27% of priced text models in the catalogue: 207th cheapest of 285. Its Arena ELO of 1480 ranks 9th of the 68 models that carry one, above 88% of them.
GLM 5.3 licence, size and capabilities
GLM 5.3 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 published size is 743B parameters. Listed capabilities: Text, Reasoning, Code, Agents. Filling its 1M context window once costs $1.40 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 | $317 – $430 |
| Knowledge Q&A | 2,000 / 800 | $456 – $632 |
| Meeting Summary | 10,000 / 1,200 | $659 – $1.9K |
| Marketing Content | 2,500 / 1,800 | $1.1K |
| Coding Task | 3,000 / 2,000 | $1.1K – $1.3K |
| Invoice Processing | 1,500 / 600 | $174 – $474 |
| Call Summary | 2,000 / 700 | $224 – $588 |
| Agent Workflow | 6,000 / 3,000 | $1.6K – $2.2K |
GLM 5.3 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 31 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 2026-10-02 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.
Cheapest host: Baidu at $0.16 input / $0.49 output per 1M tokens, 89% below the price we publish on a blended basis (30% input, 70% output). It serves a quantized fp8 build, which is not the same product as the full-precision model. The dearest, Z.AI, charges 9.0x the cheapest.
| Host | Input $/1M | Output $/1M |
|---|---|---|
| Baidu — fp8 | $0.16 | $0.49 |
| Novita — fp8 | $0.69 | $2.16 |
| SiliconFlow — fp8 | $0.70 | $2.20 |
| DeepInfra — fp4 | $0.56 | $2.50 |
| Phala | $0.84 | $2.64 |
| InferenceNet | $0.22 | $2.99 |
| Morph — fp8 | $0.42 | $2.99 |
| DigitalOcean | $0.91 | $2.86 |
| Reka | $1.00 | $3.00 |
| Wafer | $0.22 | $3.39 |
| Sail Research — fp8 | $0.20 | $3.40 |
| GMICloud — fp8 | $0.98 | $3.08 |
| Inceptron — fp4 | $0.60 | $3.39 |
| AkashML — fp8 | $1.05 | $3.56 |
| Makora — fp4 | $0.24 | $3.93 |
| Relace | $0.12 | $4.00 |
| Alibaba | $1.19 | $3.74 |
| Decart — fp4 | $1.19 | $3.74 |
| Friendli | $1.26 | $3.96 |
| Mistral (the price shown above) — nvfp4 | $1.40 | $4.40 |
| BaseTen (the price shown above) — fp4 | $1.40 | $4.40 |
| Crusoe (the price shown above) — fp4 | $1.40 | $4.40 |
| PrimeIntellect (the price shown above) | $1.40 | $4.40 |
| Venice (the price shown above) | $1.40 | $4.40 |
| Together (the price shown above) | $1.40 | $4.40 |
| Parasail (the price shown above) — fp8 | $1.40 | $4.40 |
| Modal (the price shown above) | $1.40 | $4.40 |
| Fireworks (the price shown above) | $1.40 | $4.40 |
| Cloudflare (the price shown above) | $1.40 | $4.40 |
| AtlasCloud (the price shown above) — fp8 | $1.40 | $4.40 |
| Z.AI (the price shown above) — fp8 | $1.40 | $4.40 |
GLM 5.3 price history
GLM 5.3 entered our daily price archive on 2026-08-19, 2026-08-15 being the first day we tracked any model. It listed at $1.40 input / $4.40 output per 1M tokens that day. The price we publish has changed 9 times since then, 5 of them a change of reference host rather than a repricing. The latest change, on 2026-09-27, was +269.0% on the blended price (30% input, 70% output), to $1.40 input / $4.40 output (reference host changed, not a repricing). Net of all changes, the blended price is back where it started on 2026-08-19.
| Date | Old price (in / out) | New price (in / out) | Blended change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-27 | $0.38 / $1.19 | $1.40 / $4.40 | +269.0% (reference host changed, not a repricing) |
| 2026-09-26 | $1.40 / $4.40 | $0.38 / $1.19 | -72.9% (reference host changed, not a repricing) |
| 2026-09-25 | $0.84 / $2.64 | $1.40 / $4.40 | +66.7% (reference host changed, not a repricing) |
| 2026-09-22 | $0.91 / $2.86 | $0.84 / $2.64 | -7.7% |
| 2026-09-21 | $0.90 / $2.82 | $0.91 / $2.86 | +1.6% |
4 earlier changes are not listed.
Alternatives to GLM 5.3
- Next cheaper Mid-tier model: o3 Mini (OpenAI) at $3.41 blended, 3% less.
- Next more expensive: Qwen3.7 Max (Alibaba) at $3.54 blended, 1% more.
The nearest Mid-tier models on Arena ELO, each with its blended price and score difference against GLM 5.3.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (Google) — $0.75 in / $3.75 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1482: 19% cheaper, 2 ELO points higher
- Gemini 3.5 Flash (Google) — $1.50 in / $9.00 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1477: 93% more expensive, 3 ELO points lower
- GLM 5.2 (Zhipu) — $0.41 in / $3.99 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1476: 17% cheaper, 4 ELO points lower
- Qwen3.7 Max (Alibaba) — $1.48 in / $4.42 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1475: 1% more expensive, 5 ELO points lower
- Cheapest within 15 Arena points: GLM 5.3 Flash (Zhipu), 89% cheaper, 6 ELO points lower, out of 22 models in that band.
- Highest Arena ELO within 20% of this price: Gemini 3.7 Flash (Google), 19% cheaper, 8 ELO points higher, out of 9 models in that price band.
Common questions about GLM 5.3 pricing
- How much does GLM 5.3 cost?
- GLM 5.3 costs $1.40 per million input tokens and $4.40 per million output tokens on the API.
- Does GLM 5.3 offer batch or cached pricing?
- Yes. Batch API pricing is $0.45/M input and $2.00/M output. Prompt-cache reads cost $0.14/M.
- What would GLM 5.3 cost per month?
- For a support-ticket workload (1,500 input + 500 output tokens per request) at 100K requests/month, GLM 5.3 costs about $430 at list prices.
- Has the price of GLM 5.3 changed?
- GLM 5.3 entered our daily price archive on 2026-08-19, 2026-08-15 being the first day we tracked any model. It listed at $1.40 input / $4.40 output per 1M tokens that day. The price we publish has changed 9 times since then, 5 of them a change of reference host rather than a repricing. The latest change, on 2026-09-27, was +269.0% on the blended price (30% input, 70% output), to $1.40 input / $4.40 output (reference host changed, not a repricing). Net of all changes, the blended price is back where it started on 2026-08-19.
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 5.3 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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