API cost decision in 10 seconds

GLM 5V Turbo vs Solar Pro 3

Pick Solar Pro 3 for lower cost; pick GLM 5V Turbo only if the larger context window matters more.

Page updated: 2026-05-26T10:03:26Z Data confirmed: 2026-05-26T13:08:02Z Prices normalized to USD per 1M tokens Sample workload: 1M input + 500K output

Budget verdict

Pick Solar Pro 3 for lower cost; pick GLM 5V Turbo only if the larger context window matters more.

On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Solar Pro 3 is estimated at $0.45 vs $3.2 for GLM 5V Turbo, saving $2.75 (85.9% lower).

Cost-first pickSolar Pro 3

Context-first pickGLM 5V Turbo

Sample savings$2.7585.9%

10x traffic gap$27.5

GLM 5V Turbo has more context, but Solar Pro 3 saves $2.75 on the standard workload. At 10x that traffic, the same price gap is about $27.5. Use the calculator below to replace the sample workload with your own token volume.

Cost sensitivity

Workload Sensitivity

Same prices, different token mixes.

Solar Pro 3 stays cheaper across input-heavy, balanced, and output-heavy sample workloads.

Workload shape	Token mix	Better pick	GLM 5V Turbo	Solar Pro 3
Input-heavy / RAG	5M input + 500K output	Solar Pro 3	$8	$1.05
Balanced workload	1M input + 1M output	Solar Pro 3	$5.2	$0.75
Output-heavy chatbot	1M input + 5M output	Solar Pro 3	$21.2	$3.15

Cheaper input Solar Pro 3 $1.2 vs $0.15 / 1M

Solar Pro 3 is $1.05 cheaper per 1M input tokens (87.5% lower; 8x difference).

Cheaper output Solar Pro 3 $4 vs $0.6 / 1M

Solar Pro 3 is $3.4 cheaper per 1M output tokens (85% lower; 6.67x difference).

Larger context GLM 5V Turbo 202.75K vs 128K

GLM 5V Turbo has 74.75K more context (1.58x larger).

Sample workload Solar Pro 3 $3.2 vs $0.45

Solar Pro 3 is $2.75 cheaper on the standard workload (85.9% lower).

Estimate your workload cost

Your Workload Cost

Prices are normalized to USD per 1M tokens.

Monthly input tokens Monthly output tokens

GLM 5V Turbo Calculating… Estimated API cost

Solar Pro 3 Calculating… Estimated API cost

Cheaper for this workload Calculating… Difference: calculating…

This estimate uses normalized public API pricing per 1M tokens. It is a planning aid, not a billing quote. Verify provider pricing, limits, and terms before production use.

Quick Decision

Verdict

Solar Pro 3 has the lower input price; Solar Pro 3 has the lower output price; GLM 5V Turbo offers the larger context window. For the 1M input plus 500K output sample, Solar Pro 3 is cheaper for the standard workload.

For a 1M input token plus 500K output token workload, the estimated API cost is $3.2 for GLM 5V Turbo and $0.45 for Solar Pro 3.

Best Fit

Choose GLM 5V Turbo when you care most about larger context window.

Choose Solar Pro 3 when you care most about lower input-token price, and lower output-token price.

Decision Notes

On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Solar Pro 3 is estimated at $0.45 vs $3.2 for GLM 5V Turbo, saving $2.75 (85.9% lower).
Solar Pro 3 is $2.75 cheaper on the standard workload (85.9% lower).
Solar Pro 3 is $1.05 cheaper per 1M input tokens (87.5% lower; 8x difference).
Solar Pro 3 is $3.4 cheaper per 1M output tokens (85% lower; 6.67x difference).
GLM 5V Turbo has 74.75K more context (1.58x larger).

Head-to-Head Specs

Feature	GLM 5V Turbo (Z.ai)	Solar Pro 3 (Upstage)
Input Price prompt tokens per 1M	$1.2	$0.15
Completion Price per 1M tokens	$4	$0.6
Sample Workload Cost 1M input + 500K output	$3.2	$0.45
Context Window	202.75K	128K
Release Date	2026-04-01	2026-01-27

Use-Case Decision Matrix

Use case	Better pick	Why
Budget-constrained production	Solar Pro 3	On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Solar Pro 3 is estimated at $0.45 vs $3.2 for GLM 5V Turbo, saving $2.75 (85.9% lower).
High-volume input processing	Solar Pro 3	Lower prompt-token price matters most when prompts, retrieved passages, or documents dominate the bill.
Long responses and chatbots	Solar Pro 3	Lower output-token price matters most when assistants generate many completion tokens.
RAG or long-document work	GLM 5V Turbo	A larger context window leaves more room for retrieved passages, conversation history, or source files.

Related Alternatives

Same-provider lower-cost swaps

GLM 4.5 Air (free) can replace GLM 5V Turbo when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.
GLM 4 32B can replace GLM 5V Turbo when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.15.
GLM 4.7 Flash can replace GLM 5V Turbo when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.26.
GLM 4.5 Air can replace GLM 5V Turbo when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.55.

Larger context near this budget

Llama 4 Scout offers 10M context with $0.23 sample workload cost.
Grok 4.20 offers 2M context with $2.5 sample workload cost.
Owl Alpha offers 1.05M context with $0 sample workload cost.
DeepSeek V4 Flash offers 1.05M context with $0.2 sample workload cost.

Popular competitors

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Claude Sonnet 4.6 · Anthropic · #4

Cheaper alternatives

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Larger context alternatives

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Provider catalogs

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Z.ai catalog

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Upstage catalog

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GLM 5V Turbo

GLM-5V-Turbo is Z.ai’s first native multimodal agent foundation model, built for vision-based coding and agent-driven tasks. It natively handles image, video, and text inputs, excels at long-horizon planning, complex coding,...

Solar Pro 3

Solar Pro 3 is Upstage's powerful Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) language model. With 102B total parameters and 12B active parameters per forward pass, it delivers exceptional performance while maintaining computational efficiency. Optimized...