Understanding GLM-5 price structure is essential for any team planning to integrate this model into production workflows. This guide reflects the latest publicly listed pricing as of February 12, 2026, and focuses on practical budgeting strategy.
GLM-5 Price Overview
The GLM-5 price varies by model and provider, but the latest first-party pricing page is now listed in USD.
On api.z.ai, GLM-5 is listed at $1.00 per million input tokens, $0.20 per million cached input tokens, and $3.20 per million output tokens.
GLM-5-Code is listed at $1.20 per million input tokens, $0.30 per million cached input tokens, and $5.00 per million output tokens.
GLM-5 Price on OpenRouter
For teams that prefer aggregated API access, OpenRouter's model API currently lists z-ai/glm-5 at $1.00 per million input tokens and $3.20 per million output tokens.
The OpenRouter listing shows a context window of 202,752 tokens, which aligns closely with the first-party 200K specification. Teams should still validate exact limits in real workload tests before production rollout.
GLM-5 Price Comparison Table
| Provider | Model | Input Price | Output Price | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| api.z.ai | GLM-5 | $1.00 / 1M | $3.20 / 1M | 200K |
| api.z.ai | GLM-5-Code | $1.20 / 1M | $5.00 / 1M | 200K |
| OpenRouter | z-ai/glm-5 | $1.00 / 1M | $3.20 / 1M | 202,752 |
Budgeting for GLM-5 API Costs
When planning GLM-5 price impact on your budget, consider these factors beyond the raw per-token GLM-5 price:
First, estimate your baseline input and output token volume. Most production workloads generate 3-5x more input tokens than output tokens due to system prompts, context injection, and multi-turn conversation history. Apply the GLM-5 price to your actual token distribution rather than assuming equal input and output volumes.
Second, factor in an overhead multiplier of 1.2x to 1.5x for retries, tool calls, and long-context variance. When GLM-5 is used in agentic workflows with Function Calling and parallel tool use, the total token consumption can exceed naive estimates significantly.
Third, if you use GLM-5-Code for dedicated coding tasks, budget separately for this variant. The GLM-5-Code price is higher at $1.20 per million input and $5.00 per million output, reflecting its specialized training for software engineering workflows.
Example GLM-5 Cost Calculation
Consider a team processing 400 million input tokens and 100 million output tokens per month through GLM-5:
GLM-5 monthly cost estimate:
Input: 400M tokens × $1.00/1M = $400
Output: 100M tokens × $3.20/1M = $320
Base total: $720/month
With 1.3x overhead factor: $936/monthGLM-5 Price Optimization Tips
To minimize your GLM-5 price exposure, leverage caching aggressively. The cached-input GLM-5 price on api.z.ai is $0.20 per million tokens, which is 5x lower than the standard input rate.
For development and low-stakes testing, use lower-cost models where acceptable, and reserve flagship GLM-5 for workloads that truly need top quality and long-context behavior.
For coding-specific workloads, benchmark GLM-5-Code against the standard GLM-5 model on your actual tasks. The higher GLM-5-Code price may be justified by better first-pass accuracy and fewer retries, resulting in lower total cost despite the higher per-token GLM-5 price.
Key Takeaway
GLM-5 price planning requires matching the right model to each workload type and accounting for real-world token consumption patterns. The biggest gains usually come from three levers: token-efficiency in prompts, cache hit rate, and choosing GLM-5 vs GLM-5-Code by task difficulty.
