GLM-5.2 vs Claude Sonnet 5
Side-by-side comparison of API pricing, specs, benchmarks, and capabilities
| Specification |
by Z.AI
3 providers:
Fireworks $1.40/$4.40
Together $1.40/$4.40
Z.AI $1.40/$4.40
|
by Anthropic
|
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Status | Current flagship Open weights | Current mid tier |
| Released | Jun 13, 2026 | Jun 30, 2026 |
| Pricing per million tokens | ||
| Input | $1.40/Mtok | $2.00/Mtok |
| Output | $4.40/Mtok | $10.00/Mtok |
| Blended avg | $2.15/Mtok | $4.00/Mtok |
| Cached input | $0.260/Mtok | $0.200/Mtok |
| Price basis | — | Standard pricing, per 1M tokens — not a promotional rate. $2/$10 was announced at launch as introductory pricing through Aug 31 2026, but Anthropic's pricing page now states that it "is now the standard price" and that "the previously scheduled increase to $3/$15 per million input/output tokens on September 1, 2026 will not occur". There is therefore no reversion date to watch. Verified 2026-08-13 against platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing. |
| Specifications | ||
| Context window | 1M tokens | 1M tokens |
| Parameters | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Speed (TPS) | — | — |
| Modalities | ||
| Input |
text
|
textimage
|
| Benchmarks source: Vellum LLM Leaderboard | ||
| Avg benchmark score | 76 | 81.5 |
| Perf / dollar | 35.3 | 20.4 |
| GPQA Diamond | 91.2 | 96.2 |
| SWE-Bench Verified | 45 vendor | 85.2 |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 81 | 80.4 |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 54.7 | 57.4 |
| HumanEval | 84 vendor | 85.2 |
| MCP Atlas | 77 | — |
| BrowseComp | — | 84.7 |
| OSWorld-Verified | — | 81.2 |
| ARC-AGI 2 | 30 vendor | — |
| AIME 2025 | 70 vendor | — |
| MMMLU | 80 vendor | — |
| BFCL | 70 vendor | — |
| MATH 500 | 76 vendor | — |
| AutoBench | — | 13.5 |
| AIME 2026 | 99.2 | — |
| Independent composite scores each on its own scale — not part of the average above | ||
| AA Intelligence Index | 52.6 | 55.3 |
| AA Agentic Index | 45.7 | 49.7 |
| AA-Omniscience Index (−100–100) | 4.4 | 16.4 |
| GDPval-AA v2 | 1506.1 ELO | 1598.2 ELO |
| LMSYS Chatbot Arena | 1469.4 ELO | — |
| Providers | ||
| Available from |
Fireworks — $1.40/$4.40/Mtok
Together — $1.40/$4.40/Mtok
Z.AI — $1.40/$4.40/Mtok
|
Anthropic — $2.00/$10.00/Mtok
|
Cost at scale
1M tokens · 50/50 input/output| Volume | GLM-5.2 | Claude Sonnet 5 | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1M tokens | $2.15 | $4 | $1.85 (46.3%) |
| 10M tokens | $21.5 | $40 | $18.5 (46.3%) |
| 100M tokens | $215 | $400 | $185 (46.3%) |
| 1000M tokens | $2150 | $4000 | $1850 (46.3%) |
When to pick which
distilled from the pricing and spec data above- cost dominates: $2.15/Mtok blended vs $4.00 — 46.3% less on the same 50/50 token mix
- you want open weights — self-host it, fine-tune it, or exit the API entirely; Claude Sonnet 5 is closed
- provider flexibility: available from 3 providers, so you can price-shop hosts or fail over
- your workload re-reads context (agents, RAG, long chats): cached input costs $0.200/Mtok — 90% off its list input price
- raw capability matters more than price: 81.5 vs 76 average benchmark score
The cheaper option here — GLM-5.2 costs $2.15/Mtok blended on Z.AI.
Summary
GLM-5.2 by Z.AI costs $1.40/Mtok input and $4.40/Mtok output, with a 1M-token context window. It supports text input and is available from 3 providers.
Claude Sonnet 5 by Anthropic costs $2.00/Mtok input and $10.00/Mtok output, with a 1M-token context window. It supports text, image input.
On a blended cost basis, GLM-5.2 is 46.3% cheaper than Claude Sonnet 5.
On benchmarks, Claude Sonnet 5 scores higher (81.5 vs 76) on average. In terms of value, GLM-5.2 has better performance per dollar (35.3 vs 20.4).
Note: Pricing is per million tokens. Actual costs vary with usage patterns, prompt caching, and batch discounts. Always verify against official provider pricing pages.