The Known Good Updated 25 Jul 2026
Z.ai ·Proprietary ·Released March 2026·Tracked since 25 Jul 2026

Z.ai: GLM 5.1 — quality, speed & price analysis

Compare with another model Provider benchmarks Data sources
Quality
#12 of 61
88based on 3 of 6 evaluations
Known Good Index
Speed
#154 of 316
53.4
Output tokens per second
Price
#221 of 340
$1.48
Blended per 1M tokens
In $0.97 · Out $3.04
Cache hit price
#136 of 206
$0.18
per 1M tokens (−81%)
Context
#195 of 345
205k
tokens (~300 pages)
Summary

Z.ai: GLM 5.1 is in the top quarter of the models we track for quality, and inexpensive for its standing, with mid-range throughput. It accepts text input, outputs text, and supports a 205k-token context window.

It scores 88 on the Known Good Index, well above the tracked average of 60, from 3 of the six component evaluations. Measured against the tracked average, its strongest result is MATH / AIME (92 against 53) and its weakest is SWE-bench Verified (74 against 71).

Pricing is $0.97 per 1M input tokens (below the $2.18 average) and $3.04 per 1M output (below the $9.91 average). Cached input reads at $0.18 per 1M, a 81% discount on its input price. At 53 tokens per second it sits in the upper middle of the tracked range.

Generated from tracked data on 25 Jul 2026 · how these comparisons are computed →

Technical specifications
ReasoningYes
Input modalitytext
Output modalitytext
Context window204,800 tokens
Max output128,000 tokens
WeightsProprietary
Knowledge cutoff
Tool callingYes
Providers19 hosts · compare →
Highlights — where Z.ai: GLM 5.1 sits
Price

Blended USD per 1M tokens · Lower is better · Published pricing via OpenRouter

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Quality

How Z.ai: GLM 5.1 compares against every tracked model

Known Good IndexCoding IndexCapability indicesBy open weights
Known Good Index

Composite of GPQA Diamond, MATH / AIME, SWE-bench Verified, LiveBench, Humanity's Last Exam and Terminal-Bench, normalised 0–100. Scores are ingested from Epoch AI; we do not run these evaluations.

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The Known Good

Quality Breakdown

Z.ai: GLM 5.1 on each evaluation feeding the index, against the tracked average

Evaluation scores

Bar = Z.ai: GLM 5.1 · grey marker = average across tracked models · scores ingested from Epoch AI

GPQA Diamond85 / 63
MATH / AIME92 / 53
SWE-bench Verified74 / 71
The Known Good

Arena Elo

Human preference rating from blind pairwise votes

Text Arena

Elo from blind pairwise votes, ingested from Arena

1465
Elo · 95% CI ±5
#20
of 381 ranked models
31k
votes counted
1470
style-controlled (#29)

Ingested 25 Jul 2026.

The Known Good

Price & Cost

Published API pricing by token type

BlendedInput vs outputCache discountQuality per dollar
Blended Price

USD per 1M tokens at a 3:1 input:output blend. Live from OpenRouter, cross-checked against models.dev. Lower is better.

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The Known Good
We publish blended price rather than cost-per-task. Cost-per-task requires token counts from an evaluation suite we do not run. Blended price is computed from published rates and is fully reproducible — see the pricing methodology.

Context Window

Maximum input tokens accepted

Context windowMax output tokens
Context Window

Maximum input context from provider metadata via models.dev and OpenRouter. Higher is better.

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The Known Good

Speed

Median output throughput across hosting providers

Output speedBy provider
Output Speed

Median output tokens per second across all tracked providers. Derived from OpenRouter endpoint telemetry. Higher is better.

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The Known Good

Latency

Time to first token, median across providers

Time to first tokenEnd-to-end response
Latency (TTFT)

Seconds to first streamed chunk, median across tracked providers. Derived from OpenRouter endpoint telemetry. Lower is better.

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The Known Good

Providers

Hosts serving Z.ai: GLM 5.1, with their own price and speed

19 providers
Full provider benchmarks →
ProviderInput $/MOutput $/M BlendedSpeedTTFTContext
CoreWeave $1.40 $4.40 $2.15 120 0.5s 203k
Friendli $1.40 $4.40 $2.15 109 0.3s 203k
Crusoe $1.20 $4.40 $2.00 91 0.5s 203k
Fireworks $1.40 $4.40 $2.15 90 1.0s 203k
Venice $1.54 $4.84 $2.37 80 1.5s 200k
GMICloud $0.98 $3.08 $1.50 77 2.7s 203k
Parasail $1.40 $4.40 $2.15 71 1.0s 203k
DeepInfra $1.05 $3.50 $1.66 66 0.9s 203k
SiliconFlow $1.19 $3.74 $1.83 62 1.2s 205k
Novita $1.38 $4.40 $2.13 52 2.2s 205k
Baidu · first party $0.98 $3.08 $1.50 51 0.9s 203k
Wafer $1.00 $3.20 $1.55 50 6.0s 203k
Chutes $0.98 $3.08 $1.50 48 2.1s 203k
AtlasCloud $1.26 $3.96 $1.94 42 1.4s 203k
Z.AI · first party $1.40 $4.40 $2.15 37 8.9s 203k
Nebius $1.40 $4.40 $2.15 26 0.5s 203k
StreamLake $0.97 $3.04 $1.48 25 1.4s 200k
DigitalOcean $0.97 $4.30 $1.81 21 1.2s 164k
Phala $1.21 $4.20 $1.96 203k

Per-host pricing and telemetry from OpenRouter. Speed is output tokens per second; TTFT is time to first token.

The Known Good

History

How price and quality have moved since we began tracking this model

Quality & price over time

Since 25 Jul 2026

Known Good Index 88 · based on 3 of 6 evaluations
Blended price $1.48 per 1M · observed 25 Jul 2026
Output speed 53 tok/s · observed 25 Jul 2026
Time to first token 1.9s

No recorded changes for this model since tracking began.

The Known Good

Comparisons

Head-to-head pages pairing Z.ai: GLM 5.1 with other tracked models

Sources for this page
Pricing & providers — OpenRouter Metadata — models.dev Benchmarks — Epoch AI (CC-BY 4.0)Elo — Arena Full attribution →