Two GLM-5.3 models: a text-only flagship, and a multimodal Flash about 89% cheaper

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As of 2026-09-19, Z.ai’s latest generation covers 2 of 2 current GLM-5.3-generation models: GLM-5.3, the text-only flagship for complex software engineering and long-horizon agents, and GLM-5.3-Flash, the low-cost, natively multimodal option. Both offer a 1,000,000-token context; prices below are USD per million tokens.

API list prices in USD per million tokens. Dark bars: GLM-5.3 (flagship, text-only). Light bars: GLM-5.3-Flash (multimodal). Lower price does not by itself mean the better model — the flagship targets harder engineering and agent work.

Flash costs about 89% less than the flagship on both standard input ($0.15 vs $1.40) and output ($0.50 vs $4.40) per million tokens. docs.z.ai

GLM-5.3-Flash is the first native multimodal model in the GLM-5 series, taking video, image, text and file inputs; GLM-5.3 is text-only. dev.to

Both ship downloadable weights, but licences differ: Flash is open-licensed, while GLM-5.3 uses Z.ai’s own licence with a restriction on model-as-a-service businesses exceeding $10 billion revenue over 12 months. yuwish.kr

Output limits are close: 131,072 tokens for GLM-5.3 versus 128,000 for Flash, on the same 1,000,000-token context. docs.z.ai

Model	Positioning	Inputs	Context	Max output	Input $/M	Cached $/M	Output $/M	Weights	Official	Corroboration

Data: 2 current GLM-5.3-generation models from Z.ai, checked 2026-09-19. Prices are API list prices in USD per million tokens (input, cached input, output); context and output limits in tokens. Each row carries an official docs.z.ai source and independent corroboration (dev.to, yuwish.kr). Nothing cut for space.

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