Neither wins outright: Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash is the pick when you need image input, Z.ai: GLM 5.3 (batch) when you generate long outputs in one go.
| Spec | Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash | Z.ai: GLM 5.3 (batch) |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Z Ai | |
| Input price (per 1M tokens) | $0.30 | $0.45 |
| Output price (per 1M tokens) | $2.50 | $2.00 |
| Blended price (3:1 input/output) | $0.85 | $0.84 |
| Cheaper than … of all models we track | 42% | 44% |
| Context window | 1.0M tokens (~1,573 pages) | 1.0M tokens (~1,573 pages) |
| Larger context than … of all models | 80% | 80% |
| Max output per response | 66K tokens (~49,200 words) | 131K tokens (~98,300 words) |
| Input types | file, image, text, audio, video | text |
| Output types | text | text |
| Free variant | No | No |
| Listed since | 2025-06-17 | 2026-08-18 |
Monthly cost at list price for five common workloads. Token counts per unit are stated so you can scale them to your own traffic. A workload that does not fit a model's context window is marked rather than priced.
| Workload (per month) | Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash | Z.ai: GLM 5.3 (batch) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer-support chatbot 50,000 conversations — each a 6-turn conversation (1,500 in / 400 out tokens) | $72.50 | $73.75 | Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash saves $1.25 |
| RAG search over documents 20,000 questions — each a question answered from ~8 retrieved passages (6,000 in / 500 out tokens) | $61.00 | $74.00 | Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash saves $13.00 |
| Coding / tool-using agent 2,000 tasks — each a multi-step task with tool calls and file context (60,000 in / 6,000 out tokens) | $66.00 | $78.00 | Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash saves $12.00 |
| Batch summarisation 10,000 documents — each a 6,000-word report summarised to a page (8,000 in / 600 out tokens) | $39.00 | $48.00 | Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash saves $9.00 |
| Long-document analysis 500 documents — each a 150-page contract or codebase read in one pass (100,000 in / 2,000 out tokens) | $17.50 | $24.50 | Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash saves $7.00 |
| Capability | Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash | Z.ai: GLM 5.3 (batch) | What it lets you do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tool / function calling | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | call your APIs and run agent loops |
| Structured output (JSON schema) | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | return JSON that validates against your schema |
| Reasoning / thinking mode | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | spend extra tokens thinking before answering hard problems |
| Image input | ✓ Yes | — | read screenshots, charts and scanned pages |
| Audio input | ✓ Yes | — | take speech or audio directly |
| File / PDF input | ✓ Yes | — | accept documents without your own parsing step |
| Image output | — | — | generate images, not just text |
| Built-in web search | ✓ Yes | — | answer from live web results |
| Seed (reproducible sampling) | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | repeat a generation for tests and evals |
| Log-probabilities | — | — | read token confidence for classification and scoring |
From each model's published parameters and input/output types. “—” means not advertised, not proven absent.
| Date | Model | Input / 1M | Output / 1M |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-24 | Z.ai: GLM 5.3 (batch) | $0.45 | $2.00 |
| 2026-09-23 | Z.ai: GLM 5.3 (batch) | $0.72 | $2.40 |
Neither wins outright: Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash is the pick when you need image input, Z.ai: GLM 5.3 (batch) when you generate long outputs in one go. In short: Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash when you need image input, you need audio input, you need file / PDF input, you need built-in web search; Z.ai: GLM 5.3 (batch) when you generate long outputs in one go, you want the newer model.
Z.ai: GLM 5.3 (batch) is cheaper: $0.84 vs $0.85 per 1M tokens at a typical 3:1 input/output mix, 1% less. For 50,000 support conversations a month that is $73.75 against $72.50.
Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash costs $0.30 per 1M input tokens and $2.50 per 1M output tokens; Z.ai: GLM 5.3 (batch) costs $0.45 input and $2.00 output. Output tokens are billed separately, so long answers shift the gap.
Both take 1.0M tokens per request — roughly 1,573 pages of text.
Tool calling — Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash: yes, Z.ai: GLM 5.3 (batch): yes. JSON-schema structured output — Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash: yes, Z.ai: GLM 5.3 (batch): yes.
Only Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash accepts image input; Z.ai: GLM 5.3 (batch) is text-only for input.
No free variant is listed for either; both are pay-per-token.
Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash can write up to 66K tokens (about 49,200 words) per response; Z.ai: GLM 5.3 (batch) up to 131K (about 98,300 words).
Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash was listed on 2025-06-17; Z.ai: GLM 5.3 (batch) on 2026-08-18.
Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash: price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-03-10. Z.ai: GLM 5.3 (batch): input price cut 37% ($0.72 → $0.45/1M), output price cut 17% ($2.40 → $2.00/1M) on 2026-09-24 (2 price changes since 2026-09-09).
Gemini 2.5 Flash is Google's state-of-the-art workhorse model, specifically designed for advanced reasoning, coding, mathematics, and scientific tasks. It includes built-in "thinking" capabilities, enabling it to provide responses with greater...
Full Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash specs →GLM-5.3 is a large-scale reasoning model from Z.ai, built for complex software engineering and long-horizon agent tasks. It supports text input and output with a 1M-token context window, and improves...
Full Z.ai: GLM 5.3 (batch) specs →