Z.ai: GLM 5V Turbo API Pricing
Z.ai: GLM 5V Turbo costs $1.20 per 1M input tokens and $4.00 per 1M output tokens (cache reads: $0.240). Context window: 203K. Prices verified 2026-10-21 · source
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Token economics
| Token type | Price | vs base input |
|---|---|---|
| Standard input | $1.20 | — |
| Cache read | $0.240 | −80% |
| Output | $4.00 | — |
Prompt caching stores repeated context server-side: reads cost far less, but writes carry a one-time premium.
Higher effort = deeper thinking = more reasoning tokens billed as output.
What would Z.ai: GLM 5V Turbo cost you per month?
| Workload | Requests/mo | Avg tokens (in/out) | Est. monthly cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Light chatbot | 10,000 | 800 / 400 | $25.60 |
| Coding agent | 5,000 | 8,000 / 2,000 | $88.00 |
| RAG pipeline | 30,000 | 4,000 / 500 | $204.00 |
| Doc summarizer | 2,000 | 20,000 / 1,000 | $56.00 |
Estimates use list prices without prompt caching. Caching can cut input cost by up to 90% on repeated context.
About Z.ai: GLM 5V Turbo
GLM-5V-Turbo is Z.ai’s first native multimodal agent foundation model, built for vision-based coding and agent-driven tasks. It natively handles image, video, and text inputs, excels at long-horizon planning, complex coding,...
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Frequently asked questions
How much does Z.ai: GLM 5V Turbo cost?
Z.ai: GLM 5V Turbo costs $1.20 per 1M input tokens and $4.00 per 1M output tokens; cached input tokens cost $0.240 per 1M. Verified 2026-10-21 — provider source.
What is the context window?
203K tokens, with up to 131K output tokens per response. That's roughly 253 pages of text in a single request.
Does it support prompt caching?
Yes — cached input is $0.240/1M, about 80% cheaper than standard input. Agents and RAG workloads with repeated context benefit most.
What's a cheaper alternative?
ScaleDown: Summarize saves about 99% on a typical workload with comparable quality.
Official resources
- Z.ai: GLM 5V Turbo on OpenRouter — live endpoint, pricing source of record.
- Artificial Analysis leaderboard → — independent intelligence and performance rankings.
- Shred your current bill — paste a CSV and see if switching saves money.