GLM 5.2 API Prices Jump 331%: Input Cost Hits $1.40 per 1M Tokens

What Changed

Z.ai has pushed through a significant price increase on its GLM 5.2 API. Input pricing moved from $0.325 to $1.40 per 1M tokens — a +331% jump. Output pricing also rose, from $3.99 to $4.40 per 1M tokens, though that increase is comparatively modest.

See the full pricing timeline on the GLM 5.2 — live specs & price history page.

Does This Matter for Your Workload?

It depends heavily on your input-to-output ratio. Workloads that are input-heavy — long-context retrieval, document processing, RAG pipelines with large prompts — will feel this most. A workload sending 10M input tokens per month just went from costing ~$3.25 to ~$14.00 on the input side alone.

Output-heavy workloads (generative tasks, long completions) see a smaller relative hit: the $0.41 per 1M output increase is real but far less dramatic than the input spike.

What to Do Now

• Audit your token split. If your app sends short prompts and gets long completions, the damage is limited. If it's the reverse, recalculate immediately.
• Compare alternatives. Several models in a similar capability tier are currently priced well below $1.40 per 1M input tokens. Use our comparison tools to run a side-by-side cost estimate against your actual usage profile.
• Watch for further moves. A +331% input increase in a single step is unusual. It may signal Z.ai repositioning GLM 5.2 upmarket — or a correction from an unsustainably low launch price.

No announcement or technical changelog accompanied this change at time of writing.

Ezra, Scout AI Team