{"id":15260428,"date":"2026-08-19T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/glm-5-3-hits-the-api-at-1-4-4-4-per-million-tokens\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T02:33:38","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T06:33:38","slug":"glm-5-3-hits-the-api-at-1-4-4-4-per-million-tokens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/glm-5-3-hits-the-api-at-1-4-4-4-per-million-tokens\/","title":{"rendered":"GLM-5.3 hits the API at $1.4\/$4.4 per million tokens"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a stunning debut last week<\/a> with cyber capabilities so advanced they reportedly found a previously undetected vulnerability in Cursor, GLM-5.3, the new frontier open source language model from Chinese startup z.ai, has now hit the application programming interface (API)<\/a> \u2014 allowing developers the ability to build atop it and plug it into their agents and applications. <\/p>\n

Developers who previously subscribed to a GLM Coding Plan are currently limited to the OpenAI Chat Completions-compatible protocol. Z.ai said it plans to make the model's weights openly available, but a precise date and licensing remain to be seen. <\/p>\n

On the API, the price is unchanged from GLM-5.2: $1.40 per million input tokens and $4.40 per million output tokens<\/b>. Cached input costs $0.26 per million tokens, while Z.ai currently lists cached-input storage as free for a limited time. <\/p>\n

That means developers can move to the new generation without taking a higher posted per-token rate from Z.ai, even as the company claims substantially stronger coding and long-horizon agent performance.
\nAt those rates, GLM-5.3 sits well below several of the highest-end frontier APIs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n

Model<\/b><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Input ($\/1M)<\/b><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Output ($\/1M)<\/b><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Total ($\/1M)<\/b><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Source<\/b><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Muse Spark 1.2 Contributor<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$0.10<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$0.20<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$0.30<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Meta<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

MiMo-V2.5 Flash<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$0.10<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$0.30<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$0.40<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Xiaomi<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

DeepSeek-V4-Flash \u2014 off-peak<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$0.22<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$0.66<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$0.88<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

DeepSeek<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

GPT-5.6 Luna<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$0.20<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$1.20<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$1.40<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

OpenAI<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

MiniMax-M3<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$0.30<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$1.20<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$1.50<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

MiniMax<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

LongCat-2.0 \u2014 limited-time promo<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$0.30<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$1.20<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$1.50<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

LongCat<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

DeepSeek-V4-Flash \u2014 peak hours<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$0.44<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$1.32<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$1.76<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

DeepSeek<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

MiMo-V2.5<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$0.40<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$2.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$2.40<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Xiaomi<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

DeepSeek-V4-Pro \u2014 off-peak<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$0.66<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$1.98<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$2.64<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

DeepSeek<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

LongCat-2.0 \u2014 standard<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$0.75<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$2.95<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$3.70<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

LongCat<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

MiMo-V2.5 Pro (\u2264256K)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$1.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$3.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$4.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Xiaomi<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Gemini 3.6 Flash \u2014 through Dec. 31, 2026<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$0.75<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$3.75<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$4.50<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Google<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Gemini 3.7 Flash \u2014 through Dec. 31, 2026<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$0.75<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$3.75<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$4.50<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Google<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

DeepSeek-V4-Pro \u2014 peak hours<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$1.32<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$3.96<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$5.28<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

DeepSeek<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Muse Spark 1.1 \/ 1.2<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$1.25<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$4.25<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$5.50<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Meta<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

GLM-5.3<\/b><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$1.40<\/b><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$4.40<\/b><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$5.80<\/b><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

<\/b>Z.AI<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Grok 4.6 \u2014 <200K prompt tokens<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$2.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$6.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$8.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

xAI<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

MiMo-V2.5 Pro (>256K)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$2.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$6.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$8.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Xiaomi<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Qwen3.8-Max<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$2.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$6.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$8.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

QwenCloud<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Gemini 3.6 Flash \u2014 starting Jan. 1, 2027<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$1.50<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$7.50<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$9.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Google<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Gemini 3.7 Flash \u2014 starting Jan. 1, 2027<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$1.50<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$7.50<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$9.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Google<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

GPT-5.6 Terra<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$2.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$12.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$14.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

OpenAI<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Grok 4.6 \u2014 \u2265200K prompt tokens<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$4.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$12.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$16.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

xAI<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

GPT-5.4<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$2.50<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$15.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$17.50<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

OpenAI<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Kimi K3<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$3.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$15.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$18.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Moonshot AI<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Claude Opus 5<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$5.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$25.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$30.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Anthropic<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Sakana Fugu Ultra (\u2264272K)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$5.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$30.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$35.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Sakana AI<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

GPT-5.6 Sol \u2014 Standard mode<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$5.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$30.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$35.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

OpenAI<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Claude Fable 5 \/ Claude Mythos 5<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$10.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$50.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$60.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Anthropic<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

GPT-5.6 Sol \u2014 Fast mode<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$10.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$60.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

$70.00<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

OpenAI<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Using the simple VentureBeat comparison of one million input tokens plus one million output tokens, GLM-5.3 comes to $5.80, versus $8 for Grok 4.6 <\/a>at its lower context rate, $18 for Kimi K3,<\/a> $30 for Claude Opus 5<\/a> and $35 for GPT-5.6 Sol<\/a>. <\/p>\n

That is not a workload-cost estimate \u2014 real bills depend heavily on the input\/output mix, caching and token consumption \u2014 but it makes the relative API price tier easy to see.<\/p>\n

GLM-5.3 is not the cheapest capable model available. Google\u2019s current introductory price for Gemini 3.7 Flash is $0.75 per million input tokens and $3.75 per million output tokens through Dec. 31, 2026, while OpenAI\u2019s GPT-5.6 Luna is priced at $0.20 input and $1.20 output. <\/p>\n

Still, Z.ai\u2019s price puts GLM-5.3 into a notably lower cost band than the premium frontier models it is increasingly benchmarked against.<\/p>\n

That comparison has become more relevant following the latest independent results. Artificial Analysis gives GLM-5.3 a score of 60 on its Intelligence Index<\/a>, tying Kimi K3 as the top performing open weights model in the world, and scoring seven points higher than GLM-5.2. I<\/p>\n

ts analysis also estimates GLM-5.3 at about $0.68 per Intelligence Index task, versus roughly $0.44 for GLM-5.2, despite the identical API token prices.<\/p>\n

The difference underscores an important caveat in headline API pricing: Artificial Analysis found GLM-5.3 more verbose than its predecessor, so flat per-token rates do not necessarily mean flat costs for a completed workload.<\/p>\n

For developers, though, the immediate change is straightforward: GLM-5.3 is now callable through Z.ai\u2019s API at the same $1.40\/$4.40 per-million-token rate as GLM-5.2, giving teams another relatively low-cost option for testing frontier-class coding and agent workloads.<\/p>\n

Source: TECH – VentureBeat<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a stunning debut last week with cyber capabilities so advanced they reportedly found a previously undetected vulnerability in Cursor, GLM-5.3, the new frontier open source language model from Chinese startup z.ai, has now hit the application programming interface (API)\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15260430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[214],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15260428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15260428-chatgpt_image_aug_18__2026__09_59_34_pm.png",800,450,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15260428-chatgpt_image_aug_18__2026__09_59_34_pm-300x169.png",300,169,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15260428-chatgpt_image_aug_18__2026__09_59_34_pm-620x349.png",620,349,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15260428-chatgpt_image_aug_18__2026__09_59_34_pm-768x432.png",768,432,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15260428-chatgpt_image_aug_18__2026__09_59_34_pm.png",800,450,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15260428-chatgpt_image_aug_18__2026__09_59_34_pm.png",800,450,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15260428-chatgpt_image_aug_18__2026__09_59_34_pm.png",800,450,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15260428-chatgpt_image_aug_18__2026__09_59_34_pm.png",800,450,false],"ignition_item":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15260428-chatgpt_image_aug_18__2026__09_59_34_pm-670x446.png",670,446,true],"ignition_item_lg":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15260428-chatgpt_image_aug_18__2026__09_59_34_pm.png",800,450,false],"ignition_article_media":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15260428-chatgpt_image_aug_18__2026__09_59_34_pm-510x450.png",510,450,true],"ignition_minicart_item":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15260428-chatgpt_image_aug_18__2026__09_59_34_pm-160x160.png",160,160,true],"profile_24":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15260428-chatgpt_image_aug_18__2026__09_59_34_pm-24x24.png",24,24,true],"profile_48":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15260428-chatgpt_image_aug_18__2026__09_59_34_pm-48x48.png",48,48,true],"profile_96":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15260428-chatgpt_image_aug_18__2026__09_59_34_pm-96x96.png",96,96,true],"profile_150":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15260428-chatgpt_image_aug_18__2026__09_59_34_pm-150x150.png",150,150,true],"profile_300":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15260428-chatgpt_image_aug_18__2026__09_59_34_pm-300x300.png",300,300,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"news.iNthacity","author_link":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/author\/atombo\/"},"category_info":"Tech<\/a>","tag_info":"Tech","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15260428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15260428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15260428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15260429,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15260428\/revisions\/15260429"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15260430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15260428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15260428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15260428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}