GLM 5V Turbo API Pricing
Z.ai (GLM) · context window 203K · prices updated 2026-09-15
Where GLM 5V Turbo sits on price
At $4.00 per million output tokens, GLM 5V Turbo is a mid tier model — 1.9× the median output price of $2.08, which puts it cheaper than 37% and pricier than 63% of the models we track. It sits 14th 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 5V 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 5V Turbo with caching and batch options.
GLM 5V Turbo price history
GLM 5V Turbo's price has not moved since we began tracking it on Aug 2, 2026 — 44 days of stability in a market where 78 of the 334 models we track have repriced over the same period, including 9 of Z.ai (GLM)'s own 17 models.
Change-points from our daily price snapshots (tracking since Aug 2, 2026; intraday moves between snapshots are not captured).
GLM 5V 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 5V Turbo API cost?
GLM 5V 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 5V Turbo?
Support chatbot — 500 conversations/day (5K in / 1.4K out) costs about $0.0116 per request and $174 per month on GLM 5V Turbo. Conversation history re-sent each turn — the classic prompt-caching win.
› What does it cost to fill GLM 5V 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 5V Turbo worth the price?
GLM 5V Turbo sits in the middle of the market (14 of 17 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.