GLM 5.3 Flash (batch) API Pricing
Z.ai (GLM) · context window 1M · prices updated 2026-09-15
Where GLM 5.3 Flash (batch) sits on price
At $0.25 per million output tokens, GLM 5.3 Flash (batch) is a budget tier model — 8.3× cheaper than the median output price of $2.08, which puts it in the cheapest 10% of everything we track. It is the cheapest of the 17 Z.ai (GLM) models we track. Output costs 3.3× input, the usual spread — trim both, starting with the answer length.
Cached input is 80% cheaper. On an input-heavy workload you need roughly a 31% cache-hit rate to take 25% off the input line — reachable for chatbots and agents that resend the same system prompt and history.
What real workloads cost on GLM 5.3 Flash (batch)
These three workloads are the ones teams actually run on a budget-priced model — a $0.25/1M model is not bought for the same job as one ten times the price.
| Workload | Per request | Per month |
|---|---|---|
| High-volume classification — 200K requests/day (400 in / 20 out) Short output, huge volume: the input price dominates the bill. | $0 | $210 |
| Small app — 1K requests/day (500 in / 150 out) The baseline most side projects actually run at. | $0.0001 | $2.25 |
| Long-context analysis — 200 runs/day (250K in / 4K out) Only possible on large-context models; input cost is nearly the whole bill. | $0.0198 | $119 |
Model your exact traffic in the API cost calculator — it preloads GLM 5.3 Flash (batch) with caching and batch options.
GLM 5.3 Flash (batch) price history
Z.ai (GLM) last cut GLM 5.3 Flash (batch)'s output price on Sep 9, 2026 (-50% per output token), from $0.15/$0.5 to $0.075/$0.25 per 1M in/out. That is the only repricing in the 18 days we have tracked it — worth knowing before you hard-code today's rate into a budget.
| Date | Input /1M | Output /1M | Output change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 28, 2026 (tracking began) | $0.15 | $0.5 | — |
| Sep 9, 2026 | $0.075 | $0.25 | -50% |
Change-points from our daily price snapshots (tracking since Aug 28, 2026; intraday moves between snapshots are not captured).
GLM 5.3 Flash (batch) vs Qwen3.5-9B (batch)
The closest-priced alternative from another vendor is Qwen3.5-9B (batch) (Alibaba (Qwen)) — priced within a rounding error on output, with $0.095 more per million input tokens. When two models land this close on price, the decision is quality on your own workload, not the price sheet: run 50 real requests through both and compare.
See Qwen3.5-9B (batch) pricing →Cheaper alternatives
More Z.ai (GLM) models
Frequently asked questions
› How much does the GLM 5.3 Flash (batch) API cost?
GLM 5.3 Flash (batch) costs $0.075 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens, with cached input at $0.015 per million (80% cheaper). That works out to roughly 4,000,000 output tokens per dollar.
› What does the high-volume classification workload cost on GLM 5.3 Flash (batch)?
High-volume classification — 200K requests/day (400 in / 20 out) costs about $0 per request and $210 per month on GLM 5.3 Flash (batch). Short output, huge volume: the input price dominates the bill.
› What does it cost to fill GLM 5.3 Flash (batch)'s 1M context window?
Sending 1M of input in a single request costs $0.0786 at $0.075 per million tokens — before any output. With prompt caching that same fill drops to about $0.0157 on repeat requests. This is why large context windows are cheap to advertise and expensive to actually use.
› Is GLM 5.3 Flash (batch) worth the price?
GLM 5.3 Flash (batch) is in the cheapest end of the market — cheaper than 90% of the models we track. At this price the question is not cost but capability: it is a good fit for classification, extraction, routing and bulk summarisation, and a poor fit for multi-step reasoning where a wrong answer costs more than the tokens saved.