GLM-5.3 (Max) vs Grok 4.6 (Low)

Which is better for the money: GLM-5.3 (Max) by Z AI or Grok 4.6 (Low) by SpaceXAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.

Trade-off

Z AIGLM-5.3 (Max)Off the frontier

Intelligence: 44.80
Total cost: $2503

SpaceXAIGrok 4.6 (Low)Off the frontier

Intelligence: 35.10
Total cost: $614

Verdict

Depends on your budget

GLM-5.3 (Max) scores 9.7 points higher (44.8 vs 35.1) but costs 4.1× as much to run the benchmark ($2503 vs $614; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GLM-5.3 (Max) when you need intelligence above 35.1, and Grok 4.6 (Low) when 35.1 is enough.

Metric	GLM-5.3 (Max)	Grok 4.6 (Low)	Difference
Intelligence (higher is better)	44.8	35.1	−21.7% Grok 4.6 (Low) is 21.7% less intelligent
Total AA cost (lower is better)	$2,503.48	$613.92	−75.5% Grok 4.6 (Low) is 75.5% cheaper
End-to-end time (lower is better)	28.79s	13.64s	−52.6% Grok 4.6 (Low) is 52.6% faster
Price per 1M tokens (in / out)	$1.40 / $4.40	$2.00 / $6.00
Input modalities	Text	Text, Image

Grok 4.6 (Low) vs GLM-5.3 (Max): 21.7% less intelligence, 75.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 52.6% faster end-to-end.

Open this matchup in the interactive picker GLM-5.3 (Max): what beats it Grok 4.6 (Low): what beats it

Today's Pareto frontier

Against the frontier

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.
Grok 4.6 (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.

GLM-5.3 (Max)Grok 4.6 (Low)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model

Matchup

Compare something else

Agents: Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/glm-5-3/grok-4-6-low · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/glm-5-3/grok-4-6-low?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill