As of August 20, 2026, GLM-5.3 is 68% cheaper per million tokens than Grok-4.1 Thinking. GLM-5.3 is $1.40 / $4.40 per million input/output tokens versus Grok-4.1 Thinking at $3.00 / $15.00. Sources: https://docs.z.ai/guides/overview/pricing and https://docs.x.ai/docs/models
Sources: Z AI pricing (https://docs.z.ai/guides/overview/pricing); xAI API pricing (https://docs.x.ai/docs/models)
GLM-5.3
Z AI
Input
$1.40
Output
$4.40
Grok-4.1 Thinking
xAI
Input
$3.00
Output
$15.00
Token pricing, specs, and benchmarks side by side
GLM-5.3Grok-4.1 ThinkingVerdict
Both models are closely matched on benchmarks. GLM-5.3 has the pricing advantage, making it the better value unless Grok-4.1 Thinking's specific capabilities are critical to your workflow.
As of August 20, 2026, GLM-5.3 is 68% cheaper on blended LLM API pricing. GLM-5.3 costs $1.40 per million input tokens and $4.40 per million output tokens ($5.80 blended 1M-in + 1M-out). Grok-4.1 Thinking costs $3.00 / $15.00 per million tokens ($18.00 blended). Sources: https://docs.z.ai/guides/overview/pricing and https://docs.x.ai/docs/models. The cheapest LLM for your app still depends on how many output tokens you generate.
GLM-5.3 Z AI API pricing is $1.40 input and $4.40 output per million tokens via Z AI. Grok-4.1 Thinking xAI API pricing is $3.00 input and $15.00 output per million tokens via xAI. Use those four numbers, not ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro subscription prices, when you are comparing APIs.
Neither GLM-5.3 nor Grok-4.1 Thinking has a published SWE-bench or LiveCodeBench score on this page yet. Use the comparison table for the evals that do exist.
GLM-5.3 supports a 1M token context window, while Grok-4.1 Thinking supports 256K tokens. GLM-5.3 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.
Shared benchmark scores for GLM-5.3 and Grok-4.1 Thinking are still limited. Check the comparison table for the evals each model has published. 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.
Both GLM-5.3 and Grok-4.1 Thinking are production API models. For cost-sensitive production traffic, GLM-5.3 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.
Yes. Call GLM-5.3 through Z AI and Grok-4.1 Thinking through xAI 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.
List rates are the latest published Z AI API pricing and xAI API pricing, quoted per million tokens. Official rate sheets: https://docs.z.ai/guides/overview/pricing and https://docs.x.ai/docs/models. 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.
GLM-5.3 supports up to an unspecified number of output tokens per request, while Grok-4.1 Thinking supports up to 8K output tokens. Output tokens are usually the expensive half of API pricing, so a higher max output cap is a capability, not a discount.
Grok-4.1 Thinking has a measured throughput of approximately 80 tokens/second. Throughput data for GLM-5.3 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.
Use the model pickers at the top of this LLM comparison. Search any model in the index and the URL updates. Open GLM-5.3 or Grok-4.1 Thinking from the sidebar for the single-model API pricing page, or go back to the LLM pricing table to sort by cheapest blended cost.
This comparison covers API pricing, context window, throughput, and benchmark scores. GLM-5.3 costs $1.40/M input and $4.40/M output. Grok-4.1 Thinking costs $3.00/M input and $15.00/M output.
Rank both on the LLM leaderboard, SWE-bench, and Humanity's Last Exam.
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