Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite and GLM-5.3?

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite has the lowest input price. Per 1M input tokens: Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite from $0.30 and GLM-5.3 from $0.56.

Can I switch between Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite and GLM-5.3 without changing my code?

Yes. All of them are served through FastRouter's OpenAI-compatible API, so switching is a change of the model parameter (google/gemini-3.5-flash-lite, z-ai/glm-5.3).

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite vs GLM-5.3

Side-by-side pricing per provider, context window, benchmark scores and speed, all on one OpenAI-compatible API.

Estimate monthly cost for these models

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite Googlegoogle/gemini-3.5-flash-lite

GLM-5.3 Z.aiz-ai/glm-5.3

Creator

Google

Z.ai

Released

Jul 21, 2026

Aug 18, 2026

Context window

1.05M

Max output

66K

131K

Input / 1MLowest provider price

$0.30

$0.56$0.56–$1.40 across 5

Output / 1MLowest provider price

$2.50

$2.50$2.50–$4.40 across 5

Providers

IntelligenceArtificial Analysis index

11.7

31.7

LatencyMedian time to first token

1.4s

—

ThroughputMedian tokens per second

<1 t/s

—

Accepts

Text, Image, Audio, Video, Files

Text

Produces

Text

Tool calling

Yes

Structured output

Yes

Reasoning

Yes

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite vs GLM-5.3: summary

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite and GLM-5.3 are both available through FastRouter's OpenAI-compatible API, so switching between them is a change of model id, not a new integration.

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite, from Google, has a 1,048,576-token context window, costs from $0.30/1M input and $2.50/1M output tokens across 2 providers and scores 11.7 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index.

GLM-5.3, from Z.ai, has a 1,048,576-token context window, costs from $0.56/1M input and $2.50/1M output tokens across 5 providers and scores 31.7 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index.

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is the cheapest on input, 1.9× cheaper than the next model and GLM-5.3 scores highest for intelligence.

Switch with one line

client = OpenAI(base_url="https://api.fastrouter.ai/api/v1", api_key="<FASTROUTER_API_KEY>") client.chat.completions.create(model="google/gemini-3.5-flash-lite", messages=[...]) # or client.chat.completions.create(model="z-ai/glm-5.3", messages=[...])

Full API docs

Frequently asked questions

More comparisons

Benchmark scores sourced from ArtificialAnalysis