How much does the GLM-4.6 API cost?

GLM-4.6 costs $0.6 per million input tokens and $2.2 per million output tokens, with cached input at $0.11 per million. A workload of 10M input and 1.5M output tokens per month costs about $9.30.

What is the context window of GLM-4.6?

GLM-4.6 supports a context window of 200,000 tokens (200K), with up to 128K output tokens per response.

Is GLM-4.6 open source?

Yes — GLM-4.6 is an open-weights model released under the MIT license, so it can be downloaded and self-hosted.

What are the best alternatives to GLM-4.6?

The closest alternatives by overall capability are Claude Sonnet 4.5, Kimi K2 Thinking, GPT-5.1, DeepSeek V3.2. See the comparison pages for detailed head-to-head breakdowns.

GLM-4.6

Name: GLM-4.6
Price: 0.6 USD
Author: Z.ai (Zhipu)

Z.ai (Zhipu)·Sep 2025reasoningopen weights · MIT

63.9

modhub Index

GLM-4.6 earned a devoted following by pairing genuinely useful agentic coding — competitive with Claude Sonnet 4 in many real tasks — with unbeatable economics: MIT-licensed weights and a coding-plan subscription costing a few dollars a month. It became the de-facto budget engine for Claude Code-compatible workflows and proved that the cost floor for capable coding agents was far lower than assumed.

Benchmark results

Where it shines

Outstanding real-world coding value per dollar
MIT open weights, self-hostable on 8xH100
Works as a drop-in budget backend for popular coding agents

Alternatives to GLM-4.6

Claude Sonnet 4.5

The model that made 30-hour autonomous coding sessions real — 77.2% SWE-bench Verified and a 1M-token context beta at $3/$15.

Kimi K2 Thinking

A trillion-parameter open reasoning agent that can chain 200–300 tool calls — the open-weights agentic standout of late 2025.

GPT-5.1

A November 2025 update to GPT-5 with adaptive reasoning that spends thinking tokens only when a task needs them.

DeepSeek V3.2

The sparse-attention release that halved DeepSeek's already-lowest-in-class prices while keeping GPT-class quality.

Frequently asked questions

How much does the GLM-4.6 API cost?: GLM-4.6 costs $0.6 per million input tokens and $2.2 per million output tokens, with cached input at $0.11 per million. A workload of 10M input and 1.5M output tokens per month costs about $9.30.
What is the context window of GLM-4.6?: GLM-4.6 supports a context window of 200,000 tokens (200K), with up to 128K output tokens per response.
Is GLM-4.6 open source?: Yes — GLM-4.6 is an open-weights model released under the MIT license, so it can be downloaded and self-hosted.
What are the best alternatives to GLM-4.6?: The closest alternatives by overall capability are Claude Sonnet 4.5, Kimi K2 Thinking, GPT-5.1, DeepSeek V3.2. See the comparison pages for detailed head-to-head breakdowns.