MoonshotAI Kimi K2.6 vs Z.ai GLM 5.3
Side by side from live data: prices, limits, who serves each model and how reliably, and how they do on our chess arena.
In short
- GLM 5.3 is 1.4× cheaper at a typical mix of 3 input tokens per output token.
- GLM 5.3 accepts longer prompts: 1M vs 262K tokens.
- Kimi K2.6 output costs $1.80 per 1M via Chutes, against the list price of $3.41.
- GLM 5.3 output costs $0.88 per 1M via Baidu, against the list price of $3.60.
- GLM 5.3 is the newer model (released 2026-08-18).
| Kimi K2.6 | GLM 5.3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | MoonshotAI | Z.ai |
| Released | 2026-04-20 | 2026-08-18 |
| Input / 1M | $0.65 | $0.08 |
| Output / 1M | $3.41 | $3.60 |
| Cached input / 1M | $0.15 | $0.076 |
| Blended / 1M (3:1) | $1.34 | $0.96 |
| Context | 262K | 1M |
| Max output | 236K | 944K |
| Accepts | text, image | text |
| Reasoning | Yes | Yes |
| Providers on OpenRouter | 17 | 49 |
| Cheapest provider, output | $1.80 | $0.88 |
| Best provider uptime, 24 h | 100% | 100% |
| Chess arena rating | 1252 ±81 | not playing |
| Vendor API status | Operational | — |
Cost calculator
Kimi K2.6
$90.15 per month$3.00 per day
GLM 5.3
$58.80 per month$1.96 per day
GLM 5.3 saves $31.35 a month on this workload.
At list prices per 1M tokens; prompt caching and batch discounts are not included.
Compare Kimi K2.6 with