Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs GLM-4.5-Air

    Comparison

    As of August 20, 2026, GLM-4.5-Air is 93% cheaper per million tokens than Claude 3.5 Sonnet. Claude 3.5 Sonnet is $3.00 / $15.00 per million input/output tokens versus GLM-4.5-Air at $0.20 / $1.10. Sources: https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing and https://docs.z.ai/guides/overview/pricing

    Sources: Anthropic Claude API pricing (https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing); Z AI pricing (https://docs.z.ai/guides/overview/pricing)

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet

    Anthropic

    $18.00blended / 1M

    Input

    $3.00

    Output

    $15.00

    200K ctx|Proprietary
    93%
    cheaper
    Better value

    GLM-4.5-Air

    Z AI

    $1.30blended / 1M

    Input

    $0.20

    Output

    $1.10

    131.1K ctx|Open Source
    Save $16.70 per million tokens by choosing GLM-4.5-Air over Claude 3.5 Sonnet.

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs GLM-4.5-Air comparison

    Token pricing, specs, and benchmarks side by side

    Metric
    Claude 3.5 Sonnet
    GLM-4.5-Air
    Provider
    Provider
    Anthropic
    Z AI
    License
    Proprietary
    Open Source
    Release Date
    2024-06-21
    2025-07-28
    Pricing (per 1M tokens)
    Input Price+1400%
    $3.00
    $0.20
    Output Price+1264%
    $15.00
    $1.10
    Blended (1M + 1M)
    $18.00
    $1.30
    Model Details
    Context Window
    200K
    131.1K
    Max Output Tokens
    200K
    N/A
    Knowledge Cutoff
    April 2024
    N/A
    Throughput
    78 tok/s
    N/A
    Benchmarks
    10.6%
    59.4%
    75%
    54.0%
    37.3%
    21.3%
    6.5%
    89.4%
    98.1%
    90.4%
    68.3%
    92%
    71.1%
    64.8%
    76.4%
    17.5%
    87.1%
    96.4%
    91.6%
    76.1%
    81.4%
    27.5%
    60%
    Benchmark Wins
    Claude 3.5 Sonnet 0|4 GLM-4.5-Air

    Verdict

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs GLM-4.5-Air: the bottom line

    GLM-4.5-Air offers both lower pricing and stronger benchmark performance across the board, making it the clear value leader in this comparison.

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs GLM-4.5-Air FAQ

    Which is cheaper, Claude 3.5 Sonnet or GLM-4.5-Air?

    As of August 20, 2026, GLM-4.5-Air is 93% cheaper on blended LLM API pricing. GLM-4.5-Air costs $0.20 per million input tokens and $1.10 per million output tokens ($1.30 blended 1M-in + 1M-out). Claude 3.5 Sonnet costs $3.00 / $15.00 per million tokens ($18.00 blended). Sources: https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing and https://docs.z.ai/guides/overview/pricing. The cheapest LLM for your app still depends on how many output tokens you generate.

    How much does Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs GLM-4.5-Air cost per million tokens?

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet Claude API pricing from Anthropic is $3.00 input and $15.00 output per million tokens via Anthropic. GLM-4.5-Air Z AI API pricing is $0.20 input and $1.10 output per million tokens via Z AI. Use those four numbers, not ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro subscription prices, when you are comparing APIs.

    Which is better for coding, Claude 3.5 Sonnet or GLM-4.5-Air?

    GLM-4.5-Air leads on SWE-bench Verified: Claude 3.5 Sonnet at 49% vs GLM-4.5-Air at 57.6%. SWE-bench measures real GitHub fixes; LiveCodeBench measures contest programming.

    What is the context window for Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs GLM-4.5-Air?

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet supports a 200K token context window, while GLM-4.5-Air supports 131K tokens. Claude 3.5 Sonnet offers a larger context window. Filling a larger window bills more input tokens, so the cheaper-per-million model can still cost more on long documents.

    Which model performs better on benchmarks, Claude 3.5 Sonnet or GLM-4.5-Air?

    GLM-4.5-Air leads on 4 of 4 shared benchmarks versus Claude 3.5 Sonnet's 0 wins. Check the comparison table for GPQA Diamond, SWE-bench, MMLU, HLE, and the other evals we track. Token price and benchmark score together are the usual LLM comparison, not either number alone.

    Is Claude 3.5 Sonnet or GLM-4.5-Air better for production use?

    Both Claude 3.5 Sonnet and GLM-4.5-Air are production API models. For cost-sensitive production traffic, GLM-4.5-Air has better economics on the blended 1M-in + 1M-out scale. For maximum capability, weight the benchmark table for your domain. Many production stacks route cheap models for drafts and a frontier model for the hard turn, which is usually cheaper than sending everything to the expensive API.

    Can I switch between Claude 3.5 Sonnet and GLM-4.5-Air in my app?

    Yes. Call Claude 3.5 Sonnet through Anthropic and GLM-4.5-Air through Z AI with separate API keys, or through a gateway that already wraps both. Keep prompts in tokens, not characters, when you estimate the invoice. AnotherWrapper templates can swap providers without rewriting auth and billing.

    How accurate is this Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs GLM-4.5-Air pricing data?

    List rates are the latest published Claude API pricing from Anthropic and Z AI API pricing, quoted per million tokens. Official rate sheets: https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing and https://docs.z.ai/guides/overview/pricing. Prompt caching, batch APIs, and committed-use discounts can change the invoice. Benchmark scores are from official publications and independent evals, updated as new numbers land.

    What is the output token limit for Claude 3.5 Sonnet and GLM-4.5-Air?

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet supports up to 200K output tokens per request, while GLM-4.5-Air supports up to an unspecified number of output tokens. Output tokens are usually the expensive half of API pricing, so a higher max output cap is a capability, not a discount.

    Which model has better throughput, Claude 3.5 Sonnet or GLM-4.5-Air?

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet has a measured throughput of approximately 78 tokens/second. Throughput data for GLM-4.5-Air is not yet available. Throughput (tokens per second) and time-to-first-token are why two models with the same per-million-token price can still feel different in chat and agents.

    How do I switch the models in this Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs GLM-4.5-Air comparison?

    Use the model pickers at the top of this LLM comparison. Search any model in the index and the URL updates. Open Claude 3.5 Sonnet or GLM-4.5-Air from the sidebar for the single-model API pricing page, or go back to the LLM pricing table to sort by cheapest blended cost.

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs GLM-4.5-Air pricing

    This comparison covers API pricing, context window, throughput, and benchmark scores. Claude 3.5 Sonnet costs $3.00/M input and $15.00/M output. GLM-4.5-Air costs $0.20/M input and $1.10/M output.

    Rank both on the LLM leaderboard, SWE-bench, and Humanity's Last Exam.

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