GLM 5 Turbo API Pricing
Z.ai (GLM) · context window 203K · prices updated 2026-09-20
Where GLM 5 Turbo sits on price
At $4.00 per million output tokens, GLM 5 Turbo is a mid tier model — 2.0× the median output price of $2.00, which puts it cheaper than 36% and pricier than 64% of the models we track. It is the most expensive of the 18 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 Turbo
These three workloads are the ones teams actually run on a mid-priced model — a $4.00/1M model is not bought for the same job as one ten times the price.
| Workload | Per request | Per month |
|---|---|---|
| Support chatbot — 500 conversations/day (5K in / 1.4K out) Conversation history re-sent each turn — the classic prompt-caching win. | $0.0116 | $174 |
| Document pipeline — 10K docs/day (3K in / 500 out) Batch-friendly: no user waiting, so a ~50% batch discount usually applies. | $0.0056 | $1680 |
| Small app — 1K requests/day (500 in / 150 out) The baseline most side projects actually run at. | $0.0012 | $36.00 |
Model your exact traffic in the API cost calculator — it preloads GLM 5 Turbo with caching and batch options.
GLM 5 Turbo price history
GLM 5 Turbo's price has not moved since we began tracking it on Aug 2, 2026 — 49 days of stability in a market where 79 of the 335 models we track have repriced over the same period, including 9 of Z.ai (GLM)'s own 18 models.
Change-points from our daily price snapshots (tracking since Aug 2, 2026; intraday moves between snapshots are not captured).
GLM 5 Turbo vs Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking
The closest-priced alternative from another vendor is Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking (Alibaba (Qwen)) — priced within a rounding error on output, with $0.8 less 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 VL 235B A22B Thinking pricing →Cheaper alternatives
More Z.ai (GLM) models
Frequently asked questions
› How much does the GLM 5 Turbo API cost?
GLM 5 Turbo costs $1.20 per million input tokens and $4.00 per million output tokens, with cached input at $0.24 per million (80% cheaper). That works out to roughly 250,000 output tokens per dollar.
› What does the support chatbot workload cost on GLM 5 Turbo?
Support chatbot — 500 conversations/day (5K in / 1.4K out) costs about $0.0116 per request and $174 per month on GLM 5 Turbo. Conversation history re-sent each turn — the classic prompt-caching win.
› What does it cost to fill GLM 5 Turbo's 203K context window?
Sending 203K of input in a single request costs $0.2433 at $1.20 per million tokens — before any output. With prompt caching that same fill drops to about $0.0487 on repeat requests. This is why large context windows are cheap to advertise and expensive to actually use.
› Is GLM 5 Turbo worth the price?
GLM 5 Turbo sits in the middle of the market (18 of 18 by price within Z.ai (GLM)). The honest test is a routing experiment: send the same 200 real requests to this model and to a tier below, and compare failure rate against the price gap — most teams find a majority of traffic never needed the pricier model.