Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) vs GLM-5.3 (Low)
Which is better for the money: Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) by Anthropic or GLM-5.3 (Low) by Z AI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick GLM-5.3 (Low)
GLM-5.3 (Low) vs Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning): 65.7% more intelligence, 32.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 44.0% slower end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) | GLM-5.3 (Low) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 20.7 | 34.3 | +65.7% GLM-5.3 (Low) is 65.7% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,501.22 | $1,012.50 | −32.6% GLM-5.3 (Low) is 32.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 21.58s | 31.07s | +44.0% GLM-5.3 (Low) is 44.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $3.00 / $15.0 | $1.40 / $4.40 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
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 (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning)GLM-5.3 (Low)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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