The Known Good Updated 16 Sep 2026 Subscribe
Z.ai ·Open weights (unrestricted) ·Released August 2026·Tracked since 26 Aug 2026

Z.ai: GLM 5.3 Flash — quality, speed & price analysis

Compare with another model Provider benchmarks Data sources
Quality
unranked
Known Good Index
Speed
#240 of 344
34.8
Output tokens per second
Price
#66 of 462
$0.14
Blended per 1M tokens
In $0.09 · Out $0.30
Cache hit price
#63 of 356
$0.018
per 1M tokens (−80%)
Context
#9 of 501
1.31M
tokens (~2,000 pages)
Summary

Z.ai: GLM 5.3 Flash does not yet carry a Known Good Index score — the index needs at least one science, one mathematics and one coding result. It accepts text, image, video input, outputs text, and supports a 1.31M-token context window.

Pricing is $0.09 per 1M input tokens (below the $2.07 average) and $0.30 per 1M output (below the $9.54 average). Cached input reads at $0.018 per 1M, a 80% discount on its input price. At 35 tokens per second it sits in the lower middle of the tracked range.

Generated from tracked data on 16 Sep 2026 · how these comparisons are computed →

Technical specifications
ReasoningYes
Input modalitytext, image, video
Output modalitytext
Context window1,310,720 tokens
Max output131,072 tokens
WeightsOpen weights · Open weights (unrestricted)
Knowledge cutoff
Tool callingYes
Providers30 hosts · compare →
Highlights — where Z.ai: GLM 5.3 Flash sits
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Models shown

Quality

How Z.ai: GLM 5.3 Flash compares against every tracked model

Known Good IndexCodingMathematicsReasoning
Known Good Index

Composite of GPQA Diamond, Mock AIME 2024–25, MATH Level 5, 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. This model is not in this ranking: it holds no Known Good Index score.

💡 A lightbulb marks a model its provider publishes as a reasoning model
The Known Good

Quality Breakdown

Z.ai: GLM 5.3 Flash on each evaluation feeding the index, against the tracked average

Evaluation scores

Bar = Z.ai: GLM 5.3 Flash · grey marker = average across tracked models · scores ingested from Epoch AI

GPQA Diamond90 / 65
Mock AIME 2024–2594 / 54
The Known Good

Arena Elo

Human preference rating from blind pairwise votes

Text Arena

Elo from blind pairwise votes, ingested from Arena

1472
Elo · 95% CI ±7
#24
of 410 ranked models
10k
votes counted
1475
style-controlled (#29)

Ingested 16 Sep 2026.

The Known Good

Price & Cost

Published API pricing by token type

BlendedInput vs outputQuality 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. Ranked against the 462 models priced above zero, which is the population the chart draws; excludes 34 published at no cost (free and promotional tiers).

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.

The Known Good

Speed

Mean output throughput across hosting providers, over successful measurements from the last 48 hours

Output speedBy provider

Latency

Time to first token, mean across providers over successful measurements from the last 48 hours

Latency (TTFT)

Seconds to first streamed chunk, mean across tracked providers over successful measurements from the last 48 hours. Derived from OpenRouter endpoint telemetry. Lower is better.

The Known Good

Providers

Hosts serving Z.ai: GLM 5.3 Flash, with their own price and speed

30 providers
Full provider benchmarks →
ProviderInput $/MOutput $/M BlendedSpeedTTFTContext
Crusoe $0.15 $0.50 $0.24 104 0.8s 1.05M
Parasail $0.15 $0.50 $0.24 88 1.2s 1.05M
Together $0.15 $0.50 $0.24 76 3.4s 1.05M
Makora $0.14 $0.47 $0.22 75 0.7s 1.05M
SiliconFlow $0.15 $0.50 $0.24 63 2.1s 1.05M
Modal $0.45 $1.50 $0.71 62 0.7s 1.05M
NextBit $0.20 $0.68 $0.32 58 3.1s 1.05M
CoreWeave $0.15 $0.50 $0.24 54 0.9s 1.05M
Phala $0.15 $0.50 $0.24 49 4.3s 1.05M
Reka · first party $0.23 $0.75 $0.36 47 2.1s 262k
Z.AI · first party $0.15 $0.50 $0.24 47 3.1s 1.05M
BaseTen $0.15 $0.50 $0.24 44 2.5s 1.05M
StreamLake $0.10 $0.35 $0.17 37 2.1s 1.02M
AtlasCloud $0.15 $0.50 $0.24 33 2.9s 1.05M
Inceptron $0.15 $0.50 $0.24 32 6.3s 1.05M
Relace $0.09 $0.30 $0.14 31 1.6s 1.05M
Fireworks $0.15 $0.50 $0.24 29 5.2s 1.05M
GMICloud $0.10 $0.35 $0.17 29 3.3s 1.05M
Novita $0.13 $0.44 $0.21 29 4.1s 1.05M
DeepInfra $0.07 $0.25 $0.12 25 1.9s 1.05M
Wafer $0.10 $0.35 $0.16 20 0.8s 1.05M
Venice $0.15 $0.50 $0.24 15 2.0s 1.05M
DigitalOcean $0.15 $0.50 $0.24 8 3.5s 1.05M
Cloudflare $0.15 $0.50 $0.24 7 2.0s 1.31M
Io Net $0.15 $0.50 $0.24 5 4.9s 262k
Sail Research $0.15 $0.50 $0.24 5 1.9s 1.05M
Morph $0.10 $0.35 $0.16 4 115.3s 1.05M
Near AI $0.15 $0.50 $0.24 4 2.0s 1.05M
Friendli $0.15 $0.50 $0.24 3 5.2s 1.05M
OpenInference $0.15 $0.50 $0.24 1 9.5s 1.05M

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 26 Aug 2026

Known Good Index
Blended price $0.14 per 1M · observed 16 Sep 2026
Output speed 35 tok/s · observed 16 Sep 2026
Time to first token 2.8s
16 Sep 2026 · price change
Z.ai: GLM 5.3 Flash price down 10%
Blended 3:1 price moved from $0.16 to $0.14 per 1M tokens (OpenRouter).
16 Sep 2026 · price change
Z.ai: GLM 5.3 Flash price up 33%
Blended 3:1 price moved from $0.12 to $0.16 per 1M tokens (OpenRouter).
15 Sep 2026 · price change
Z.ai: GLM 5.3 Flash price down 50%
Blended 3:1 price moved from $0.24 to $0.12 per 1M tokens (OpenRouter).
13 Sep 2026 · price change
Z.ai: GLM 5.3 Flash price up 100%
Blended 3:1 price moved from $0.12 to $0.24 per 1M tokens (OpenRouter).
13 Sep 2026 · price change
Z.ai: GLM 5.3 Flash price down 50%
Blended 3:1 price moved from $0.24 to $0.12 per 1M tokens (OpenRouter).
13 Sep 2026 · price change
Z.ai: GLM 5.3 Flash price up 100%
Blended 3:1 price moved from $0.12 to $0.24 per 1M tokens (OpenRouter).
13 Sep 2026 · price change
Z.ai: GLM 5.3 Flash price down 50%
Blended 3:1 price moved from $0.24 to $0.12 per 1M tokens (OpenRouter).
12 Sep 2026 · price change
Z.ai: GLM 5.3 Flash price up 100%
Blended 3:1 price moved from $0.12 to $0.24 per 1M tokens (OpenRouter).
12 Sep 2026 · price change
Z.ai: GLM 5.3 Flash price down 50%
Blended 3:1 price moved from $0.24 to $0.12 per 1M tokens (OpenRouter).
10 Sep 2026 · price change
Z.ai: GLM 5.3 Flash price up 100%
Blended 3:1 price moved from $0.12 to $0.24 per 1M tokens (OpenRouter).
10 Sep 2026 · price change
Z.ai: GLM 5.3 Flash price up 7%
Blended 3:1 price moved from $0.11 to $0.12 per 1M tokens (OpenRouter).
9 Sep 2026 · price change
Z.ai: GLM 5.3 Flash price down 7%
Blended 3:1 price moved from $0.12 to $0.11 per 1M tokens (OpenRouter).
The Known Good

Comparisons

Head-to-head pages pairing Z.ai: GLM 5.3 Flash with other tracked models

Head-to-head pages are generated for the top 50 models by Known Good Index, which Z.ai: GLM 5.3 Flash is not currently in. Its nearest tracked models by index are below.

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