Chinese AI Models in 2026: GLM-5.3 Status, Kimi K3, and DeepSeek V4 Prices
Compare current Chinese AI API prices and availability across GLM-5.3/5.2, Kimi K3, DeepSeek V4, MiniMax M3, Qwen 3.7, and MiMo.
Chinese AI APIs are no longer one budget category. The current market includes ultra-cheap text routes, premium long-horizon coding models, native multimodal agents, and million-token context models.
The most useful question is not which model wins a vendor benchmark. It is which model completes your workload at the lowest total cost after output tokens, cached context, long-context premiums, latency, and retries.
Current Price Snapshot
USD prices below use official international API pricing. RMB prices remain in RMB because converting them would introduce exchange-rate drift.
| Model | Input / 1M | Cached Input / 1M | Output / 1M | Context | Best Fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek V4 Flash, off-peak | $0.22 | $0.007 | $0.66 | 1M | Scheduled low-cost text routing |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash, peak | $0.44 | $0.014 | $1.32 | 1M | Conservative daytime price |
| Xiaomi MiMo-V2.5 | $0.14 | $0.0028 | $0.28 | 1M | Affordable multimodal agents |
| MiniMax M3, up to 512K input | $0.30 | $0.06 | $1.20 | 1M | Long-context multimodal agents |
| GLM-5.2 | $1.40 | $0.26 | $4.40 | 1M | Current priced GLM API |
| Kimi K3 | $3.00 | $0.30 | $15.00 | 1M | Multimodal, very-long-output agents |
| Qwen3.7 Plus, up to 256K input | ¥1.60 | Not listed | ¥6.40 | 1M | Current alias promotion |
| Qwen3.7 Max | ¥6 | Not listed | ¥18 | 1M | Current alias promotion |
MiniMax M3 input above 512K costs $0.60/M input, $0.12/M cached input, and $2.40/M output. Under the current Qwen alias promotion, Qwen3.7 Plus input from 256K to 1M costs ¥4.80/M input and ¥19.20/M output. Alibaba has not listed a promotion end date.
What Changed
Kimi K3 adds a 3T-class open-model candidate
Moonshot AI released Kimi K3 on July 16 with 2.8T total parameters, native visual understanding, 1M context, strict structured output, dynamic tool loading, and automatic prefix caching. The API currently always reasons at maximum effort, and the full model weights are now available.
At $3/$15, K3 is not the cheapest Chinese API. It should be evaluated where image/video input, very long output, or reduced retries can justify its premium. Moonshot also states that K3 still trails GPT-5.6 Sol and Claude Fable 5 overall.
MiniMax M3 makes long context affordable
MiniMax M3 launched on June 1, 2026 with a 1M-token context window, native image and video input, tool use, and a very large maximum output allowance. Its $0.30/$1.20 standard international price makes it one of the most interesting choices for long codebases and multimodal agents.
GLM-5.3 is newer, but pay-as-you-go pricing is pending
Z.AI announced GLM-5.3 on August 14 with 1M context and 128K maximum output. It is available in GLM Coding Plan, while the standard API and token price are still coming soon. GLM-5.2 therefore remains the current priced pay-as-you-go row at $1.40/$4.40. Do not copy the 5.2 price to 5.3.
Qwen has moved far beyond Qwen 2.5
Qwen3.7 Plus and Max now offer 1M context through Alibaba Cloud Model Studio. Plus is the more practical price-performance route; Max is a premium model and should be reserved for tasks where its quality difference is measurable.
Recommended Routing
| Workload | Starting Model |
|---|---|
| Classification, extraction, simple tool calls | DeepSeek V4 Flash |
| Cost-sensitive coding agent | Xiaomi MiMo-V2.5 |
| Long codebase, image/video input, long output | MiniMax M3 |
| Multi-hour engineering workflow with priced API billing | GLM-5.2 |
| Evaluate the newest GLM coding model | GLM-5.3 through Coding Plan |
| Image/video-grounded agent or output above 384K | Kimi K3 |
| Existing Alibaba Cloud stack | Qwen3.7 Plus |
Do not route everything to one flagship. Measure task success rate, total generated tokens, retries, latency, and human repair time. A model with a higher token price can still be cheaper per completed task, but only your workload can prove that.
Use the AI Model Pricing Calculator to compare the USD-priced models in the canonical dataset.
Read the Kimi K3 API guide or the GLM-5.3 vs DeepSeek V4 vs Kimi K3 comparison.
Official sources checked August 17, 2026: Kimi K3 pricing, GLM-5.3 docs, Z.AI pricing, MiniMax pricing, Alibaba pricing, DeepSeek pricing, and Xiaomi MiMo pricing.