What is GLM-5 good for?

Complex system engineering and long-range agent work. MIT weights allow commercial self-hosting, on a multi-GPU node.

When is GLM-5 not a good fit?

Text only, and no built-in web search, though a host or your own tool loop can add one. GLM-5.1 has since replaced it, and self-hosting takes a large multi-GPU node.

What is the cheapest way to run GLM-5?

Hosted, unless you push serious volume. Z.AI charges $1.00 in / $3.20 out per 1M tokens. The cheapest rental that fits is 8x A100 at $10,138 a month, which costs the same as about 7B tokens a month on that API.

How does GLM-5 compare with GLM-5.1?

Z.AI says GLM-5.1 codes much better than GLM-5 and, unlike earlier models that run out of ideas early, keeps improving its answer over many rounds of tool calls on long agent tasks. Same text input. GLM-5 lists at 29% less per 1M input tokens and 27% less per 1M output tokens than GLM-5.1. It came out 2 months earlier and has a smaller context (200K against 205K tokens).

Can I self-host GLM-5?

Yes. The weights are MIT licensed. At 4-bit it needs about 414 GB of GPU memory, which starts at roughly $10,138 a month on the cheapest rental that fits.

Open weights · MIT

GLM-5

Z.AI's fifth-generation flagship, a 744B-parameter MoE activating 40B per token with DeepSeek Sparse Attention, aimed at agentic engineering and long-horizon work.

Jump to: Specs Pricing Self-hosting Similar models FAQ More from Z.AI

Visit website Compare vs other LLMs →

List price via Z.AI

Input: $1.00 / 1M tokens
Output: $3.20 / 1M tokens

Cheapest: $0.60 / $1.60 per 1M tokens via Geodd

6 providers

Key Specifications

Context window: 200K tokens
Max output: 131K tokens
Released: Feb 2026
Parameters: 744B, 40B active
Inputs: Text

Capabilities Show details: Reasoning Thinks before it answers, always on or as a switchable mode. Function calling Connect to external tools, APIs, and systems. Structured output Return responses in structured formats like JSON.

Hosted API pricing

Input tokens M Output tokens M

Provider	Input / 1M tokens	Output / 1M tokens	Cached input / 1M	Cost at 10M in + 2M out
Geodd Cheapest	$0.60	$1.60		$9.20	View
Z.AI Creator	$1.00	$3.20	$0.20	$16.40	View
DigitalOcean	$1.00	$3.20	$0.20	$16.40	View
Lyceum	$1.00	$3.20		$16.40	View
Novita	$1.00	$3.20	$0.20	$16.40	View
Azure	$1.10	$3.52	$0.22	$18.04	View

Heads up: Base-tier, on-demand rates per 1M tokens; cached, batch and long-context tiers excluded. A provider may serve a shorter context or a quantized build than the creator's release. Verify before provisioning. More on how we price.

Estimated cost to self-host

GLM-5 needs about 414 GB of GPU memory at 4-bit with 32K context. The cheapest rental that fits is 8× A100 at about $10,138 a month.

That costs the same as roughly 7B tokens a month on Z.AI's API. Self-hosting is more expensive below that volume.

Precision	Cheapest, 32K context	Cheapest, full 200K context
4-bitINT4 / FP4	8× A100 414 GB VRAM · $10,138/mo	8× A100 429 GB VRAM · $10,138/mo
8-bitFP8 / INT8	4× B300 747 GB VRAM · $22,666/mo	4× B300 755 GB VRAM · $22,666/mo
16-bitFP16 / BF16	8× B300 1,493 GB VRAM · $45,331/mo	8× B300 1,508 GB VRAM · $45,331/mo

Estimates based on median on-demand rates for Nvidia GPUs. Memory is weights plus KV cache for one request, using FP8 KV cache where supported and FP16/BF16 otherwise. Break-even assumes a 5:1 input-to-output ratio. No guarantee of runtime support, usable performance, or that a matching quantized build exists. How we estimate costs.

Similarly priced models

The models nearest GLM-5 by blended rate, each at its own cheapest provider.

Model	Blended / 1M	Input / 1M	Output / 1M	Context	Cutoff	vs GLM-5
Gemini 2.5 Flash Google Cloud	$0.6667	$0.30	$2.50	1M	Jan 2025	−13%
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite Google Cloud	$0.6667	$0.30	$2.50	1M	Mar 2026	−13%
GPT-3.5 Turbo OpenAI	$0.6667	$0.50	$1.50	16K	Sep 2021	−13%
Mistral Large 3 Mistral	$0.6667	$0.50	$1.50	256K		−13%
Qwen3.5-Plus Alibaba Cloud	$0.7333	$0.40	$2.40	1M		−4%
GLM-5 This model Z.AI	$0.7667	$0.60	$1.60	200K
DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 70B DeepSeek	$0.80	$0.80	$0.80	131K		+4%
GLM-4.7 Z.AI	$0.8667	$0.60	$2.20	205K		+13%
Qwen3.5-122B-A10B Alibaba Cloud	$0.8667	$0.40	$3.20	262K		+13%
Gemini 3 Flash Preview Google Cloud	$0.9167	$0.50	$3.00	1M	Jan 2025	+20%
Qwen3.6-Plus Alibaba Cloud	$0.9167	$0.50	$3.00	1M		+20%

Prices are USD per 1M tokens at each model's cheapest listed provider. Blended is the cost of 10M input plus 2M output tokens, spread over the 12M.

GPUhub

Our sponsor

Fully Dedicated GPU Servers

No Virtualization. No Shared GPUs

Stable Performance for AI Training & Inference

Full Control for Production Workloads

Learn more

Frequently Asked Questions

What is GLM-5 good for?: Complex system engineering and long-range agent work. MIT weights allow commercial self-hosting, on a multi-GPU node.
When is GLM-5 not a good fit?: Text only, and no built-in web search, though a host or your own tool loop can add one. GLM-5.1 has since replaced it, and self-hosting takes a large multi-GPU node.
What is the cheapest way to run GLM-5?: Hosted, unless you push serious volume. Z.AI charges $1.00 in / $3.20 out per 1M tokens. The cheapest rental that fits is 8x A100 at $10,138 a month, which costs the same as about 7B tokens a month on that API.
How does GLM-5 compare with GLM-5.1?: Z.AI says GLM-5.1 codes much better than GLM-5 and, unlike earlier models that run out of ideas early, keeps improving its answer over many rounds of tool calls on long agent tasks. Same text input. GLM-5 lists at 29% less per 1M input tokens and 27% less per 1M output tokens than GLM-5.1. It came out 2 months earlier and has a smaller context (200K against 205K tokens).
Can I self-host GLM-5?: Yes. The weights are MIT licensed. At 4-bit it needs about 414 GB of GPU memory, which starts at roughly $10,138 a month on the cheapest rental that fits.

More from Z.AI

Model	Context	Input / 1M	Output / 1M
GLM-4.7 Open weights	205K	$0.60	$2.20
GLM-5.2 Open weights	1M	$0.70	$2.20
GLM-5-Turbo	205K	$1.20	$4.00
GLM-5V-Turbo	205K	$1.20	$4.00
GLM-5.1 Open weights	205K	$1.30	$4.30
GLM-5.3	1M	$1.40	$4.40
GLM-5.3-Flash Open weights	1M	$0.08	$0.25