What is Z.ai

Z.ai is the global model and developer platform from Zhipu AI, an independent foundation-model company founded in 2019. Its product footprint spans the GLM language-model family, vision and media generation, agent APIs, open models, and a dedicated subscription for AI coding tools.

Core offerings

  • GLM text models for reasoning, coding, long-horizon agent work, and tool use.
  • Vision-language, OCR, image-generation, video-generation, audio, and translation services.
  • OpenAI-compatible and Anthropic-compatible API endpoints for developer integration.
  • GLM Coding Plan access for Claude Code, Cline, OpenCode, Kilo Code, and other supported tools.

Pricing

As of July 21, 2026, Z.ai’s GLM Coding Plan lists Lite at US$18 per month, Pro at US$72 per month, and Max at US$160 per month. Lite is designed for one lightweight project at a time and includes up to roughly 80 prompts in a rolling five-hour window, 400 prompts per week, and 100 monthly calls shared across Web Search, Web Reader, and Zread MCP tools.

Pro includes five times Lite usage and is designed for one or two simultaneous projects, with up to roughly 400 prompts per five hours, 2,000 per week, and 1,000 monthly MCP calls. Max includes 20 times Lite usage, dedicated peak-time resources, and support for two or more simultaneous projects, with up to roughly 1,600 prompts per five hours, 8,000 per week, and 4,000 monthly MCP calls. All three tiers include GLM-5.2, GLM-5-Turbo, and GLM-4.7 plus Vision Understanding, Web Search, Web Reader, and Zread MCP access. Z.ai states that prompt figures are estimates and actual consumption varies with project complexity and repository size.

General API access is billed separately by usage. Current text-model rates per million tokens include GLM-5.2 at US$1.40 input, US$0.26 cached input, and US$4.40 output; GLM-5-Turbo at US$1.20 input, US$0.24 cached input, and US$4 output; and GLM-4.7 at US$0.60 input, US$0.11 cached input, and US$2.20 output. GLM-4.7-Flash is listed as free. Web Search costs US$0.01 per use, GLM-Image costs US$0.015 per image, and CogVideoX-3 costs US$0.20 per video.

Model footprint

Z.ai operates a broad multimodal catalogue rather than one flagship endpoint. Its official pricing page covers text models, vision models, OCR, image and video generation, speech recognition, built-in tools, and packaged agents. Coding Plan quota is separate from general prepaid API usage and is restricted to supported coding tools and scenarios.

Why select Z.ai

Z.ai is worth shortlisting when teams want competitively priced GLM API access, open-model optionality, or a coding subscription that works across several popular agent tools. Buyers should keep the individual-use Coding Plan and general-purpose API billing separate when estimating cost.

Official sources: Zhipu AI company profile, GLM Coding Plan pricing, GLM Coding Plan features and limits, GLM Coding Plan usage policy, Z.ai API pricing.