GLM-5.3 API price, and what each result really costs
Z.ai, listed 18 Aug 2026. Price checked 12 Nov 2026; unchanged since we started tracking it. Source: Z.ai's pricing page. z-ai/glm-5.3
List price per million tokens
- Input
- $1.40
- Cached input
- $0.26
- Output
- $4.40
- Context window
- 1.05M tokens
Note: Conflict: OpenRouter headline ($0.07/$1.40) is a third-party host; Z.ai's own endpoint is $1.40/$4.40. Cache storage limited-time free.
What it costs per task, and per task that works
Six common task shapes with typical token counts. The real cost counts the tries that get redone; the rates are examples, not measurements.
| Task | Per 1,000 tries | Per 1,000 that work, 8 in 10 | Per 1,000 that work, 6 in 10 | Per 1,000 that work, 4 in 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Support bot answer3,000 in / 300 out | $5.52 | $6.90 | $9.20 | $13.80 |
| Invoice field extraction2,500 in / 250 out | $4.60 | $5.75 | $7.67 | $11.50 |
| Lead scoring1,200 in / 100 out | $2.12 | $2.65 | $3.53 | $5.30 |
| Email reply draft1,500 in / 400 out | $3.86 | $4.82 | $6.43 | $9.65 |
| Translation900 in / 800 out | $4.78 | $5.98 | $7.97 | $11.95 |
| Search re-ranking4,000 in / 50 out | $5.82 | $7.28 | $9.70 | $14.55 |
Work out your own real cost per resultTest GLM-5.3 on your own prompt
Compare GLM-5.3 with
- GLM-5.3 Flash$0.15 in / $0.50 outSwitch cost
- GPT-6.1 Terra$1.00 in / $5.00 outSwitch cost
- Claude Haiku 4.5$1.00 in / $5.00 outSwitch cost
- DeepSeek V4 Pro$1.32 in / $3.96 outSwitch cost
- GPT-5.4 mini$0.75 in / $4.50 outSwitch cost
Questions
How much does the GLM-5.3 API cost?
$1.40 per million input tokens and $4.40 per million output tokens, or $0.26 per million for cached input. Price checked 12 Nov 2026; unchanged since we started tracking it.
What does a result that works really cost with GLM-5.3?
A support bot answer (about 3,000 tokens in, 300 out) costs $0.0055 per try. If 6 in 10 work first time, each answer that works really costs $0.0092, because the redone ones were paid for too.