Zhipu AI

GLM-5-Turbo

Reviewed by the GetInfoUs research teamLast reviewed: October 2026Editorial policy
86
Intelligence Index

Hosted commercial accelerator of the GLM-5 architecture offering reduced latency and optimized tool execution for demanding enterprise apps.

Technical Specifications

Provider
Zhipu AI
Category
flagship
Release Date
2026-03
Knowledge Cutoff
January 2026
Architecture
Hosted Accelerated Frontier Transformer
Parameters
Confidential
Context Window
200K tokens
Max Output
16K tokens
Cached Input Price
$0.06 / 1M tokens
Batch API Discount
50% off async batch
Consumer Subscription
API Pay-as-you-go
Reasoning Mode
Yes (Chain-of-Thought)
Reasoning Effort Control
Configurable (Low / Med / High)
Tool Calling
Yes
Structured Outputs
Yes
Open Weights
No (Proprietary Cloud)
Input Modalities
text
Output Modalities
text
Official Documentation
Visit Official Docs ↗

Data Privacy, Licensing & Deployment Governance

API Data Training Policy
API payloads are excluded from model training by default
Model License & Commercial Rights
Proprietary Commercial API (Zhipu AI Terms)
Deployment & Cloud Availability
Zhipu AI Cloud API & Enterprise Endpoints
Output Ownership
Full commercial ownership of generated outputs

Official Provider Release Intelligence, API Quotas & Agentic Specs

Compare Multi-Models Side-by-Side →
Official API Model ID (SDK String)
glm-5-turbo
Supported SDK & API Protocol
Zhipu AI REST API (OpenAI-Compatible)
Lifecycle & Deprecation Status
Active GA (Guaranteed support through 2028+)
Production Rate Limits (RPM & TPM)
5,000 – 15,000 RPM (Production Tier) · 800,000 – 2,000,000 TPM
Long-Context Pricing Tier (>128K / >200K)
Flat rate ($0.6/1M in) across full 200K window
Prompt Cache Write & TTL Policy
Cached input at $0.06/1M tokens
Computer Use & Browser GUI Agent
API / CLI Tool-Use & DOM Agent ready (no raw pixel desktop click loop)
MCP & Parallel Tool Calling
Native MCP Client/Server ready · Parallel function calling · 100% Strict JSON Schema
Web Search Grounding & Code Sandbox
Supported via external Tavily/Exa Search & E2B/Docker Sandbox tools
Fine-Tuning & Distillation Support
API Prompt Engineering & RAG Distillation
Multimodal Tokenization Billing
Text BPE (~4 chars/token)
Weights Precision & Quantization
Cloud-Hosted Proprietary (FP8 / BF16 Tensor Core Cluster)
Minimum GPU VRAM Requirement
Zero Local VRAM Required (100% Serverless Cloud API)
Supported Inference Engines
Managed Zhipu AI Cloud API
System Card & Safety Framework
Zhipu AI Production Safety & Alignment Verified
Enterprise Compliance (SOC2 / HIPAA / ZDR)
SOC2 Type II · GDPR · Zero Data Retention (ZDR) & HIPAA BAA Available on Enterprise Tier
Engineering & Pricing Workbench

GLM-5-Turbo Cost, Context, Hardware & API Integration

500 / day
4,000 tok
1,000 tok
Conversation Depth (History Re-billing):1 Turn (Single-Shot)
50%
Estimated Monthly API Cost (30 Days)
$46.80$63.00
Monthly Savings: $16.20 (Caching/Batch)
Subscription ($20/mo) vs API

For single-user chat, a $20/mo subscription caps your bill below this API volume.

Break-even point: ~214 requests/day equals $20/month.

Same Monthly Workload Cost Across Popular Reference Models

GLM-5-Turbo (Active)
$46.80
/ month
Gemini 2.5 Flash
$18.00
/ month
DeepSeek V3
$32.70
/ month
GPT-4o
$300.00
/ month
Claude 3.7 Sonnet
$405.00
/ month

Live Prompt Paste Tokenizer & Cost Counter

Paste real system instructions, JSON schemas, or code to measure BPE token counts across tokenizers.

Chars / Words
175 / 24
OpenAI o200k
~46 tok
Claude BPE
~49 tok
Llama / DeepSeek
~51 tok

Hybrid Prompt Routing Cascade Simulator

Route routine queries to a fast lightweight model ($0.15/1M) and escalate only complex reasoning turns to GLM-5-Turbo:

Cascaded Monthly Bill:$25.20/mo
Saves $21.60/mo (46% cost reduction) vs sending 100% of traffic to GLM-5-Turbo.

Benchmark Scores & 6-Axis Capability Radar

Benchmark Encyclopedia
Coding (63)Reasoning (75)Knowledge (83)Speed (63)Context (85)Cost Value (84)
GLM-5-Turbo2026 Frontier Median
SWE-bench Verified
55%
GPQA Diamond
65%
MMLU-Pro
82.5%
HumanEval
92%
Chatbot Arena Elo
1365pts

Strengths

  • Reduced latency and swift time-to-first-token compared to raw open-source cluster serving
  • Reliable enterprise SLA backed by official Zhipu Cloud infrastructure
  • Affordable $0.60/1M input pricing for flagship-grade intelligence

Limitations & Trade-offs

  • Proprietary hosted endpoint rather than freely downloadable weights
  • Context window is 200K compared to 1M on the upcoming GLM-5.2 tier

Editorial Assessment

A fast, polished hosted enterprise engine providing high-grade intelligence at economical rates.

Best for: High-throughput enterprise applications, code assistants, and automated customer workflows

Frequently Asked Questions about GLM-5-Turbo

How much does the GLM-5-Turbo API cost per 1M tokens?+

GLM-5-Turbo by Zhipu AI is priced at $0.6 per 1M input tokens and $1.8 per 1M output tokens. With prompt caching enabled, cached input tokens cost $0.06 per 1M tokens, and asynchronous Batch API requests receive a 50% discount.

Should I use a $20/month subscription or the GLM-5-Turbo pay-as-you-go API?+

A flat $20/month consumer subscription is predictable for daily interactive chat and manual coding. However, if you are building software, running automated workflows, or sending low-to-moderate volume with prompt caching enabled, the pay-as-you-go API is typically far more cost-effective and offers higher rate limits without manual UI caps.

How many words and pages fit in GLM-5-Turbo's context window?+

GLM-5-Turbo features a 200K tokens context window, which equals approximately 150,000 English words or ~400 standard single-spaced pages in a single prompt. Its maximum output generation per turn is 16,384 tokens.

Can I run GLM-5-Turbo locally on my own GPU (Open Weights)?+

No, GLM-5-Turbo is a proprietary closed-weights model hosted by Zhipu AI. It cannot be downloaded for local GPU execution and must be accessed via Zhipu AI's official API or cloud platform.

Does Zhipu AI train on data sent to the GLM-5-Turbo API, and is commercial use allowed?+

API payloads are excluded from model training by default. License tier: Proprietary Commercial API (Zhipu AI Terms). Full commercial ownership of generated outputs. Supported deployment channels include: Zhipu AI Cloud API & Enterprise Endpoints.

How does GLM-5-Turbo perform on coding and reasoning benchmarks?+

GLM-5-Turbo achieves a composite Intelligence Index of 86/100, scoring 55% on SWE-bench Verified, 65% on GPQA Diamond, 82.5% on MMLU-Pro, and 1365 pts on Chatbot Arena Elo.

What is GLM-5-Turbo best used for?+

GLM-5-Turbo is best suited for: High-throughput enterprise applications, code assistants, and automated customer workflows. Assessment: A fast, polished hosted enterprise engine providing high-grade intelligence at economical rates.

AI Glossary & Architecture Concepts

View full glossary →

Key machine learning concepts and benchmarks relevant to GLM-5-Turbo:

Benchmark scores, token prices, and rate limits evolve rapidly as AI labs release model updates. Always verify current specifications and pricing on the official provider documentation.

Sources: Zhipu AI BigModel Cloud API Documentation↗