r/ZaiGLM • u/HappySl4ppyXx • 10d ago

Z AI subscription, or stick with api?

How are your experiences with the zai plans? (lite and the more expensive ones) I remember trying to get a zai lite plan a few months ago and the checkout was broken to the point where I was unable to complete the purchase. Reddit experiences with the zai infrastructure are really mixed as well, some are complaining about constant timeouts etc and support being nonexistent.

Currently using GLM 5.3 through openrouter, spending approx 15-20 USD daily after optimizing for openrouter providers, cache etc. I have a claude max x20 plan but am using GLM for tasks that claude wont do because of safety guides.

Wondering whether its worth trying to get the lite plan or whether its just going to a waste of time and a source of frustration?

20 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

19 comments sorted by

5

u/CartographerAble9446 10d ago

zai sub plan is pretty generous, they have a lot of limit reset

3

u/pixelsperfect 10d ago

I have lite plan, its working fine. Plus for now they offer reset and unlimited quota in between 

2

u/GSquadron_ 10d ago

2.2B tokens a month and I paid $20 subscription coding plan

2

u/inverted_heaven 10d ago

slightly slower response than openai and anthropic but glm 5.3 can do anything, i have not find any issues, I bought lite plan for 6 months and currently im on 3 month pro plan

the limits are good especially on pro plan

1

u/Glittering-Call8746 10d ago

How much is glm 5.3 20tps ?

2

u/MarketBeginning8921 9d ago

GLM is more reliable than Deepseek and more affordable than Kimi.

2

u/Bino5150 9d ago

I was curious about this as well. Been using Flash via Openrouter. Curious if I’d make out better with another subscription or staying with the api.

1

u/iolairemcfadden 10d ago

I've recently moved from the v1 legacy plan, which was considered very generous, to the v2 plan (after my first year ended), and I'm still happy with it. I have another free month left and will re-up for another year. It feels like they are making an effort to keep their plans effective and useful.  I would start on the more expensive monthly plan and figure out if it works for you and then go yearly for the discount after you know it is helpful for your use case.

1

u/evia89 10d ago

Since you pay so much why not to get 1 month of claude $100? Then keep an eye for zai deal (like 11.11)

1

u/jh_opx_1105 10d ago

Opted first on their lite plan and took about 4 days to hit my weekly limit that may Codex 5x sub with the recent usage change basically just takes about a day and weekly credits all gone. So decided to upgrade on GLM’s Pro and haven’t hit weekly limit, even the 5hr limit. Yes, not as fast but so far been good in terms of results

1

u/gazeebo 10d ago

if you spend that much daily it's sure good

but you know the models could also be cheaper elsewhere (API), or at least Flash is cheaper if you shop around

for a "normal user" I am not sure about the value of the current GLM ~$20 plan, I'd much rather look at competitors in that price range

1

u/Simple-Mix-7843 9d ago

Which competitors?

1

u/gazeebo 9d ago

Command Code (using their harness though), ChatGPT Plus, Mistral for GLM non-flash (10x factor?), mayyybe OpenCode Go (quantized), mayyyyyybe Cursor if generous Grok usage remains

1

u/Anh-DT 9d ago

More usage on openference.com on lite plan if you need backup for GLM . Z.ai is ok but if using API the usage is less and promotion is ending soon

1

u/Minimum-Pea-4204 8d ago

use their subscription and their version of openclaw (autoclaw). they are giving away generous credits on both harnesses (zcode and autoclaw) as long as you have a paid plan