GLM-5.3-Flash vs Claude Haiku 5.5
GLM-5.3-Flash and Claude Haiku 5.5 are within three points on the Models at Work leaderboard, which we treat as a tie (75 vs 73). Claude Haiku 5.5 is about 1.2× cheaper per blended million tokens ($0.20 vs $0.24). On Artificial Analysis' independent Intelligence Index, Claude Haiku 5.5 leads 36 to 28.
| GLM-5.3-Flash · Z.ai | Claude Haiku 5.5 · Anthropic | |
|---|---|---|
| Leaderboard rank | #9 | #13 |
| Score (0–100) | 75 | 73 |
| Tier | Open weights | Fast and cheap |
| Price per 1M tokens | $0.15 in · $0.50 out | $0.10 in · $0.50 out |
| Context window | 1M | 1M |
| Open weights | Yes | No |
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index | 28 | 36 |
| Arena Text score | 1475 (rank 38) | — |
| Arena WebDev score | 1609 (rank 26) | — |
| Best for | Cheap agentic coding execution, Bulk document and image processing, Self-hosted multimodal assistants | Classification and extraction, Routing tiers, Latency-sensitive paths |
Compare source-qualified API rates and a monthly workload example before estimating your bill.
Choose GLM-5.3-Flash if…
- you need cheap agentic coding execution
- you need bulk document and image processing
- you need self-hosted multimodal assistants
Probably the best price-to-intelligence ratio on the market: AA 42 for $0.15/$0.50, MIT-licensed, natively multimodal, 1M context. Not actually fast despite the name; treat it as a cheap executor behind a stronger planner.
Caveats: 'Too slow for execution, despite the name' on Z.ai's own hosting (~60 tok/s); third-party hosts vary. Users report less consistent output than full GLM-5.3; pair it with a planning model. 320B total params: self-hosting still needs a multi-GPU node.
Choose Claude Haiku 5.5 if…
- you need classification and extraction
- you need routing tiers
- you need latency-sensitive paths
Ten cents a million and, per the people using it, smarter than the other ten-cent model; mind the 100K cliff.
Caveats: Price jumps five-fold above 100K input tokens, which commenters call an absurdly low cutoff for agent runs.
What practitioners say
GLM-5.3-Flash: A month-long HN diary ('One month coding with GLM 5.3 Flash', 233 points) spent $68 total; commenters agreed 'a month of agentic coding for $68 is the headline'. The working pattern is 'GLM-5.3 to write the plan, Flash to implement', with one user noting that given an unambiguous plan 'GLM 5.3 Flash executes it just fine'. Negatives: 'too slow for execution, despite the name' on Z.ai hosting, and the full model is 'way more consistent'.
Claude Haiku 5.5: The thread had over a thousand points in a day; the recurring reports are near-perfect structured classification in production and 'noticeably smarter than GPT-6 Luna', against complaints about the 100K pricing tier.
Questions people ask
Which is better, GLM-5.3-Flash or Claude Haiku 5.5?
GLM-5.3-Flash and Claude Haiku 5.5 are within three points on the Models at Work leaderboard, which we treat as a tie (75 vs 73). Claude Haiku 5.5 is about 1.2× cheaper per blended million tokens ($0.20 vs $0.24). On Artificial Analysis' independent Intelligence Index, Claude Haiku 5.5 leads 36 to 28.
When should I choose GLM-5.3-Flash over Claude Haiku 5.5?
Choose GLM-5.3-Flash for cheap agentic coding execution, bulk document and image processing, self-hosted multimodal assistants. Probably the best price-to-intelligence ratio on the market: AA 42 for $0.15/$0.50, MIT-licensed, natively multimodal, 1M context. Not actually fast despite the name; treat it as a cheap executor behind a stronger planner.
When should I choose Claude Haiku 5.5 over GLM-5.3-Flash?
Choose Claude Haiku 5.5 for classification and extraction, routing tiers, latency-sensitive paths. Ten cents a million and, per the people using it, smarter than the other ten-cent model; mind the 100K cliff.
Which is cheaper, GLM-5.3-Flash or Claude Haiku 5.5?
GLM-5.3-Flash costs $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.50 per million output tokens on Z.ai's list price (Z.ai Pricing, read Nov 2, 2026). Claude Haiku 5.5 costs $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.50 per million output tokens on Anthropic's list price (Claude pricing, read Nov 2, 2026).
Scores come from the Models at Work leaderboard: Score is 0 to 100 and computed, not typed: 55% independent evals (Artificial Analysis, Arena, Scale SEAL, Epoch, each scaled against its natural floor and the best score in this table, then averaged), 15% blended price on a fixed log scale ($0.05 per million is 100, $60 is 0), 15% practitioner sentiment from Signals and community threads, 15% operational fit (context window, open weights). A missing component drops out and the rest are reweighted. A model with no independent eval yet is provisional and ranks below every measured one. Within three points is a tie. Vendor-published figures are labelled and never counted. Prices are vendor list prices where published; blended figures assume three input tokens per output token.