THE TICKER · HEAD-TO-HEAD · CHECKED DAILY · LAST CHANGE 2026-10-13
CLAUDE FABLE 5.1 VS GLM 5.3 FLASH
Anthropic vs Z.ai, in USD per million tokens, cross-checked daily against the public pricing dataset. Same jobs, both meters running.
Claude Fable 5.1 costs 97.0x more than GLM 5.3 Flash for the same job — a 1,000-token prompt with a 3,000-token reply runs $0.16 vs $0.0016. At 1,000 runs a day, that gap is $4,750.50 a month for identical traffic.
SIDE BY SIDE
| Claude Fable 5.1 → | GLM 5.3 Flash → | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | Anthropic | Z.ai |
| Input / MTok | $10.00 | $0.150 |
| Output / MTok | $50.00 | $0.500 |
| Output multiple | 5.0x | 3.3x |
| 1K prompt + 3K reply | $0.16 | $0.0016 |
SAME JOB, BOTH BILLS
| Scenario | Claude Fable 5.1 | GLM 5.3 Flash | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| A typical prompt | $0.05 | $0.0005 | 97.0x |
| A 20-turn conversation | $0.24 | $0.0026 | 92.3x |
| Summarizing a 10-page document | $0.24 | $0.0028 | 85.7x |
| One agent run | $0.62 | $0.0063 | 98.4x |
| A code review request | $0.20 | $0.0021 | 96.4x |
Output sizes use the same editorial ratios as the Burn Calculator. Estimates, not invoices — and price is not a benchmark: the cheaper model is only a bargain if it does the job.
SETTLE IT WITH YOUR OWN PROMPT
Paste a real prompt into the Burn Calculator and see what it costs on Claude Fable 5.1, GLM 5.3 Flash and the other 34 models on the board — plus how much of it is waste either way.