> I'd be very surprised if it wasn't more than 50% cheaper for nearly all workflows, for a very similar level of quality.

If your using pure API ... providers like neuralwatt cut that cost down even more by using energy as the actual cost. So GLM 5.2 is more expensive then GLM 5.1 on their service (those thinking tokens), compared to API costs, its dirt cheap. And way more tokens then the zai subscription delivers.

We are seeing a move towards more realistic pricing on actual consumption based usage. Be it DeepSeek, Xiaomi (MiMo), or zai's GLM via neuralwatt.

The main issue facing subscriptions a-la-carte usage, is that a lot of the heavy hitters really drain the resources. And that as a business model can not survive without ...

a) increasing the prices. b) everything goes to actual token/energy usage based billing but with more realistic pricing, and not the bloated API prices that are focused on companies.

We shall see what the future holds but things will change.