💰 Unit Cost Winner GLM-5.3-Flash $0.12/1M in · $0.40/1M out
⚡ Latency & Speed Winner GLM-5.3-Flash 90ms TTFT · 175 tok/s
💻 Coding (SWE) Winner Grok 4 73.2% SWE-bench · 95% HumanEval
🧠 STEM Reasoning Winner Grok 4 86.2% GPQA · 97.6% MATH-500

Which model is better: GLM-5.3-Flash or Grok 4?

GLM-5.3-Flash is 95.2% cheaper for input tokens ($0.12 vs. $2.50 per 1M tokens) and $0.40 vs. $12.50 for output tokens (20.8x cost advantage). In terms of operational performance, GLM-5.3-Flash delivers lower response latency at 90ms TTFT (390ms faster than Grok 4) with 175 vs. 95 tok/s throughput. Grok 4 leads coding evaluations at 73.2% SWE-bench Verified vs. 52.8% for GLM-5.3-Flash and 86.2% vs. 63.5% on GPQA Diamond.
Verified daily via automated API latency tests and official documentation.

Verified Performance & Unit Economics Delta (12 Dimensions)

Daily synchronized metrics across token pricing, prompt cache economics, latency, throughput, and 5 capability benchmarks.

Metric / Dimension GLM-5.3-Flash Grok 4 Net Delta / Advantage
Input Cost / 1M Tokens $0.12 $2.50 GLM-5.3-Flash is 20.8x cheaper
Output Cost / 1M Tokens $0.40 $12.50 GLM-5.3-Flash (96.8% lower)
Prompt Cache Read / 1M $0.030 $0.500 GLM-5.3-Flash is 16.7x cheaper
Prompt Cache Write / 1M $0.12 $2.50 GLM-5.3-Flash is 20.8x cheaper
Context Window (Max Output) 262k (16k out) 262k (66k out) Equal Context Window
Avg TTFT Response Latency 90ms 480ms GLM-5.3-Flash (390ms faster)
Generation Speed (Throughput) 175 tok/s 95 tok/s GLM-5.3-Flash (+80 tok/s faster)
SWE-bench Verified (Coding) 52.8% 73.2% Grok 4 (+20.4% lead)
GPQA Diamond (PhD STEM) 63.5% 86.2% Grok 4 (+22.7% lead)
MMLU-Pro (Multi-Discipline) 78.4% 89.9% Grok 4 (+11.5% lead)
MATH-500 (Quantitative Logic) 84% 97.6% Grok 4 (+13.6% lead)
Inference Value Score (IVR) 76.7 / 100 57.6 / 100 GLM-5.3-Flash (+19.1 pts)

Interactive Monthly Token Economics & ROI Forecaster

Model production workloads across prompt, completion, and cached context tokens, or switch models on the fly.

25.0M Tokens
500K 50M 250M 500M+
5.0M Tokens
100K 25M 75M 150M+
50% Cached
0% (Uncached) 25% 50% (Typical Agent) 95% Max

Estimated Monthly Spend

GLM-5.3-Flash $3.88

$0.12/1M in · $0.40/1M out

Prompt Cache: $0.030/1M read · $0.12/1M write

Grok 4 $100.00

$2.50/1M in · $12.50/1M out

Prompt Cache: $0.500/1M read · $2.50/1M write

Projected Monthly Cost Reduction
$96.13 / mo
(96.1% lower cost with GLM-5.3-Flash)
Open Full Matchup Analysis →
A

When to Choose GLM-5.3-Flash

Choose GLM-5.3-Flash (Zhipu AI) for sub-100ms ultra-fast inference model designed for real-time customer support, document classification, and agentic workflows — offering a 262k context window, 90ms TTFT, and $0.12/1M input pricing ($0.030/1M cached reads).

B

When to Choose Grok 4

Choose Grok 4 (xAI) for real-time financial/market intelligence, PhD-level STEM problem solving, and autonomous code generation — offering a 262k context window, 480ms TTFT, and $2.50/1M input pricing ($0.500/1M cached reads).

Related Questions & Decision Factors

Which is cheaper: GLM-5.3-Flash or Grok 4?

GLM-5.3-Flash is cheaper at $0.12/1M input tokens ($0.40/1M output) compared to $2.50/1M input ($12.50/1M output) for Grok 4.

Which model has lower TTFT latency and higher tok/s throughput: GLM-5.3-Flash or Grok 4?

GLM-5.3-Flash delivers faster first-token latency at 90ms TTFT (175 tok/s throughput) compared to 480ms TTFT (95 tok/s) for Grok 4.

How do GLM-5.3-Flash and Grok 4 compare on SWE-bench coding and GPQA Diamond reasoning?

On SWE-bench Verified software engineering, GLM-5.3-Flash scores 52.8% versus 73.2% for Grok 4. On GPQA Diamond graduate-level STEM reasoning, GLM-5.3-Flash scores 63.5% versus 86.2% for Grok 4 (and 84% vs 97.6% on MATH-500).

When should you choose GLM-5.3-Flash?

Choose GLM-5.3-Flash (Zhipu AI) for sub-100ms ultra-fast inference model designed for real-time customer support, document classification, and agentic workflows — offering a 262k context window, 90ms TTFT, and $0.12/1M input pricing ($0.030/1M cached reads).

When should you choose Grok 4?

Choose Grok 4 (xAI) for real-time financial/market intelligence, PhD-level STEM problem solving, and autonomous code generation — offering a 262k context window, 480ms TTFT, and $2.50/1M input pricing ($0.500/1M cached reads).

Explore High-Priority Related Model Matchups