Z.ai · Model
GLM 5.3 pricing, context window and specs
GLM 5.3 costs $1.40 per million input tokens and $4.40 per million output tokens, and reads up to 1,048,576 tokens per request. By blended price it is number 15 of 16 from cheapest in Z.ai's current line-up.
- Input / 1M
- $1.40
- Output / 1M
- $4.40
- Cached / 1M
- $0.26
- Context
- 1,048,576
- Max output
- Not published
- Released
- 2026-08-18
Estimate your cost with GLM 5.3Compare all Z.ai modelsCount tokens for GLM 5.3
Pricing
GLM 5.3 API pricing
| Price per 1M tokens | Input | Output |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | $1.40 | $4.40 |
| Cached input (read) | $0.26 | – |
| Batch API | $0.45 | $2 |
Output costs 3.1× the input price, so long replies drive the bill more than long prompts. If your requests share a long fixed prefix, such as a system prompt or tool definitions, caching cuts that part to 19% of the normal input price.
Examples
What GLM 5.3 costs in practice
| Workload | Tokens in / out | Requests/day | Per request | Per month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Support chatbot50% cached | 1,500 / 400 | 1,000 | $0.00301 | $91.40 |
| RAG app20% cached | 6,000 / 500 | 500 | $0.00923 | $140.40 |
| Coding agent80% cached | 40,000 / 2,000 | 200 | $0.0283 | $172.28 |
| Document summariserbatch | 8,000 / 600 | 300 | $0.0048 | $43.80 |
Change any number in the cost calculator.
Context
Context window
GLM 5.3 accepts up to 1,048,576 tokens per request, roughly 786,432 English words or 1,573 pages. That budget is shared between your prompt and the reply, and no separate cap on the reply is published.
Filling the whole window with one prompt costs about $1.47 at list price, so for repeated long-document work, retrieval (sending only the relevant parts) or prompt caching is usually much cheaper.
Features
Capabilities
- Image input
- No
- Tool / function calling
- Yes
- Reasoning mode
- Yes
- Prompt caching
- Yes
- Structured output
- Yes
- Open weights
- Yes
- Accepts
- text
- Knowledge cutoff
- Not published
As declared by the provider’s API. It shows a feature exists, not how well it works.
Z.ai
Where GLM 5.3 sits in Z.ai’s line-up
Ranked by blended price (three parts input to one part output, $2.15 per 1M for GLM 5.3), it is number 15 of 16 from cheapest of Z.ai’s 16 priced models. See every Z.ai model and price
| Model | Input / 1M | Output / 1M | Context | Released |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GLM 5.3 Prime | $2.80 | $8.80 | 1,000,000 | 2026-09-23 |
| GLM 5.3 FlashX | $0.37 | $1.25 | 1,048,576 | 2026-09-18 |
| GLM 5.3 Flash | $0.15 | $0.50 | 1,048,575 | 2026-08-26 |
| GLM 5.3 (this page) | $1.40 | $4.40 | 1,048,576 | 2026-08-18 |
| GLM 5.2 | $1.40 | $4.40 | 1,048,576 | 2026-06-16 |
| GLM 5.1 | $0.966 | $3.036 | 200,000 | 2026-04-07 |
| GLM 5V Turbo | $1.20 | $4 | 202,752 | 2026-04-01 |
| GLM 5 Turbo | $1.20 | $4 | 202,752 | 2026-03-15 |
Save
Cheaper alternatives
- Qwen3.8 FlashQwen89% cheaper
- GLM 5.3 FlashZ.ai89% cheaper
- Mistral Small 4Mistral88% cheaper
- DeepSeek V3.2DeepSeek86% cheaper
- MiniMax M2.7MiniMax83% cheaper
Current models from major providers, one per provider, that keep tool calling, a reasoning mode, a usable context window and output limit. Compared by blended price.
Compare
Similarly priced models
- Qwen3.7 MaxQwen$1.475 / $4.425
- Claude Haiku 4.5Anthropic$1 / $5
- Muse Spark 1.1Meta$1.25 / $4.25
- GPT-5.4 MiniOpenAI$0.75 / $4.50
- Grok 4.20xAI$1.25 / $2.50
Current models from other major providers, closest blended price.
FAQ
GLM 5.3 questions
How much does GLM 5.3 cost?
GLM 5.3 costs $1.40 per million input tokens and $4.40 per million output tokens, with cached input at $0.26. A typical chatbot reply (1,500 tokens in, 400 out) costs about $0.00386. Use the LLM cost calculator for your own workload.
What is GLM 5.3's context window?
1,048,576 tokens, about 786,432 English words or 1,573 printed pages, shared between your prompt and the reply. No separate limit on the reply is published, so the window is the limit.
Does GLM 5.3 support prompt caching and batch requests?
Yes, cached input is billed at $0.26 per million tokens (19% of the normal input price). A batch API is available at $0.45 input and $2 output per million tokens.
What are cheaper alternatives to GLM 5.3?
With the same essentials (tool calling), the cheapest options are Qwen3.8 Flash (89% cheaper), GLM 5.3 Flash (89% cheaper), Mistral Small 4 (88% cheaper). Cheaper doesn't mean equivalent, so test them on your own prompts.
Is GLM 5.3 open source?
Yes, GLM 5.3 has open weights, so you can run it yourself or choose between several hosting providers. The prices here are a typical hosted price.