Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) vs GLM-5.3 (Max)
Which is better for the money: Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) by Anthropic or GLM-5.3 (Max) by Z AI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
GLM-5.3 (Max) scores 24.1 points higher (44.8 vs 20.7) but costs 1.7× as much to run the benchmark ($2503 vs $1501; flagship vs premium cost classes). Pick GLM-5.3 (Max) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning).
| Metric | Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) | GLM-5.3 (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 20.7 | 44.8 | +116.4% GLM-5.3 (Max) is 2.2× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,501.22 | $2,503.48 | +66.8% GLM-5.3 (Max) is 66.8% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 20.89s | 31.62s | +51.4% GLM-5.3 (Max) is 51.4% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $3.00 / $15.0 | $1.40 / $4.40 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
GLM-5.3 (Max) vs Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning): 116.4% more intelligence, 66.8% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 51.4% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- GLM-5.3 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning)GLM-5.3 (Max)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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