Thinking Machines Inkling Small vs Z.ai GLM 5.3 FlashX
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
- Both cost about the same at a typical 3:1 input/output mix.
- GLM 5.3 FlashX accepts longer prompts: 1M vs 524K tokens.
- GLM 5.3 FlashX is the newer model (released 2026-09-18).
| Inkling Small | GLM 5.3 FlashX | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | Thinking Machines | Z.ai |
| Released | 2026-07-30 | 2026-09-18 |
| Input / 1M | $0.45 | $0.37 |
| Output / 1M | $1.20 | $1.25 |
| Cached input / 1M | $0.10 | $0.09 |
| Blended / 1M (3:1) | $0.637 | $0.59 |
| Context | 524K | 1M |
| Max output | 262K | 131K |
| Accepts | text, image, audio | text, image, video |
| Reasoning | Yes | Yes |
| Providers on OpenRouter | 1 | 1 |
| Cheapest provider, output | $1.20 | $1.25 |
| Best provider uptime, 24 h | 100% | 100% |
| Chess arena rating | not playing | not playing |
| Vendor API status | — | — |
Cost calculator
Inkling Small
$45.00 per month$1.50 per day
GLM 5.3 FlashX
$40.95 per month$1.36 per day
GLM 5.3 FlashX saves $4.05 a month on this workload.
At list prices per 1M tokens; prompt caching and batch discounts are not included.
Compare Inkling Small with
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