Z.ai (Zhipu) · language model
GLM 4.6V: pricing, context and benchmarks
GLM 4.6V is a language model from Z.ai (Zhipu) released on December 8, 2025. It costs $0.3 per million input tokens and $0.9 per million output tokens, with a 131.1K-token context window. No independent score has been published for it so far.
| Price | 18/30 | |
|---|---|---|
| Context | 4/15 | |
| Features | 15/15 |
What you need to know about GLM 4.6V
GLM 4.6V was released by Z.ai (Zhipu) (China) on December 8, 2025. It accepts images, text, and video as input and produces text. Its context window reaches 131,072 tokens, larger than 29 % of the models in the registry, and it can write up to 32,768 tokens in one go.
It has been available for about 11 months, long enough for its prices and scores to have settled.
GLM 4.6V pricing
On OpenRouter, GLM 4.6V costs $0.3 per million input tokens and $0.9 per million output tokens. Counting three tokens read for every token written, its average price is $0.45 per million, more expensive than 39 % of paid models (1.7 times cheaper than the median of $0.76).
A concrete example: a task that sends 2,000 tokens (about 1,500 words) and receives a 500-token answer costs $0.0011. At 1,000 tasks a day, budget $32 a month. The price calculator redoes this with your own volumes.
Tokens already sent and cached are billed at $0.055 per million.
Performance and benchmarks
Epoch AI does not yet publish a capabilities index for GLM 4.6V. We therefore show no made-up performance rating: only price, context and features count towards its score.
Features, privacy and local use
- It supports tool calling, so it can drive an AI agent, call APIs or MCP servers.
- It can answer in an enforced JSON format (structured outputs).
- It is a reasoning model: it "thinks" before answering, which helps on hard tasks but uses more output tokens.
Its weights are open and downloadable from Hugging Face: you can run it on your own machines without sending your data to a third party.
Other Z.ai (Zhipu) models
| Model | Released | Avg. price | ECI |
|---|---|---|---|
| GLM 5.3 Prime | Sep 23, 2026 | $4.3 | — |
| GLM 5.3 FlashX | Sep 18, 2026 | $0.59 | — |
| GLM 5.3 Flash | Aug 26, 2026 | $0.24 | 153.1 |
| GLM 5.3 | Aug 18, 2026 | $0.41 | 156 |
| GLM 5.2 | Jun 16, 2026 | $1.78 | 151.9 |
| GLM 5.1 | Apr 7, 2026 | $2.15 | 149.8 |
| GLM 5V Turbo | Apr 1, 2026 | $1.9 | — |
| GLM 5 Turbo | Mar 15, 2026 | $1.9 | — |
Verdict
GLM 4.6V scores 62/100 on our grid, which only uses published figures.
Strengths
- Open weights: self-hostable, your data stays with you.
- Agent-ready: tool calling and structured JSON output.
Limitations
- No independent score published: performance cannot be verified.
Alternatives
- DeepSeek V3$0.45
- DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus$0.45
- DeepSeek V3 0324$0.5
- Muse Glimmer 30B$0.53
- DeepSeek V3.1$0.43
- Llama 3.1 70B Instruct$0.4
Comparisons and tools
Learn more
Frequently asked questions
How much does GLM 4.6V cost?
$0.3 per million input tokens and $0.9 per million output tokens on OpenRouter (checked October 25, 2026). A task with 2,000 tokens read and 500 written costs $0.0011.
How big is GLM 4.6V's context window?
131,072 tokens, roughly 98,000 words, with a maximum of 32,768 output tokens.
Can GLM 4.6V run locally?
Yes, its weights are published.
Is GLM 4.6V suitable for an AI agent?
Technically yes: it supports tool calling and structured outputs. Then check its cost for your volume.
What are the alternatives to GLM 4.6V?
The closest models on price and performance are DeepSeek V3, DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus, and DeepSeek V3 0324.
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Neutrality. No affiliate links. No vendor pays to be reviewed, rated or ranked. Reviews are directed by François Chollet, neutral and factual, and every data point is dated and sourced. How we score