Z.ai
Verified Oct 15, 2026 ActiveWeb chatbot and API access to Zhipu AI's GLM reasoning models, including a 1M-token context window.
Listed on EffectHub ·
Pricing
- Pricing model
- Freemium
- Paid options from
- $18/mo
- Billing
- Monthly
Chat is free. The API bills per million tokens (GLM-5.3 at $1.40 input and $4.40 output; GLM-5.3-Flash at $0.15 input). The GLM Coding Plan starts at $18/month on Lite, with Pro and Max tiers for heavier use.
Use tool ↗About Z.ai
Z.ai is the chat product and developer API for GLM, the large language model line built by Zhipu AI, a Beijing company that operates internationally as Z.ai. The web chat gives free access to GLM models for general conversation, coding help and agentic tasks such as multi-step tool use. Developers call the same models through an API billed per million tokens, with the current GLM-5.3 offering a 1M-token context window and always-on reasoning, plus cheaper Flash variants. A separate GLM Coding Plan sells bundled usage for coding agents as a monthly subscription with credit limits that reset every five hours and every week.
- Platforms
- Web · API
- API
- Yes
- Last verified
- Oct 15, 2026
Verified sources
- API pricing page (all prices in USD): GLM-5.3 $1.40 input / $4.40 output per 1M tokens, GLM-5.3-Flash $0.15 input (15 October 2026)docs.z.ai ↗
- GLM Coding Plan overview: 'starting at just 18 USD per month', Lite/Pro/Max with 5-hour and weekly credit limits, off-peak usage at 50% (15 October 2026)docs.z.ai ↗
- GLM-5.3 model page: 1M-token context window, 128K max output, reasoning always on (15 October 2026)docs.z.ai ↗
Is Z.ai legit?
We don’t label tools safe or unsafe. Below are the records we checked ourselves, each with the date we read it.
- Domain registered
- Dec 15, 2017 (8 years ago)Registry record (RDAP), registrar Dominet (HK) Limited, looked up Sep 18, 2026
- TLS certificate
- Issued by Sectigo Limited, valid until Nov 27, 2026Seen in our own connection to the site on Oct 15, 2026
- Last checked
- Oct 15, 2026The site answered
- Operated by
- Zhipu AI (Z.ai), ChinaOur research, card verified Oct 15, 2026
Pros & cons of Z.ai
Z.ai is worth knowing about mainly because of what's behind it: Zhipu AI is one of the few foundation-model companies with a public listing, and GLM's context window and agentic tool-use benchmark competitively against larger US labs. The free chat is a fine general assistant, but most of the value for developers sits in the metered API and the coding subscription rather than the consumer chat page.
Pros
- Free web chat with no signup friction for basic use
- API pricing undercuts several Western foundation-model providers per token
- 1M-token context window on the flagship GLM line
Cons
- Company and data handling are based in China, which rules it out for some compliance policies
- Model naming and version numbers change frequently, making comparisons harder to track
- English-language documentation lags behind the Chinese-language originals in places
Best for
- Developers wanting lower per-token API pricing than several Western providers
- Users comfortable with a Chinese-developed model for general chat
- Teams evaluating GLM's long context window for document-heavy tasks
Not for
- Organizations with policies against Chinese-developed AI models
- Users wanting the deepest third-party plugin ecosystem
Watch out: The Coding Plan meters usage in credits that reset every five hours and every week, and peak hours (weekday afternoons, Singapore time) burn credits twice as fast as off-peak.
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