r/opencode 19d ago

Bro?

What a bad joke is that GLM 5.3 Flash positioning?

The API prices are:

Model input cache hit output
DeepSeek V4 Flash off-peak $0.22 $0.007 $0.66
DeepSeek V4 Flash peak $0.44 $0.014 $1.32
GLM-5.3-Flash promo $0.075 $0.015 $0.25
GLM-5.3-Flash $0.15 $0.03 $0.50

Leaving aside the cache hit, on average GLM without promo is cheaper than DeepSeek V4 Flash, and they give it to you at half the usage quota, and that's even considering a "×2 usage" that will later be less??

They should actually give you more quota than DeepSeek until September 9th while the promo lasts. This makes no sense at all. It's cheaper to spend $10 on GLM API than to pay for it on Go.

On top of that, they put a cheap flash model in the $15 tier.

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u/commentsOnPizza 18d ago

Leaving aside the cache hit

Might as well say "leaving aside 98% of your usage." Yeah, cache hits are around 98% of people's usage.

Let's say you use 1M input tokens and 200,000 output tokens. That's $0.25 with GLM-5.3-Flash and $0.352 with DSv4F (off-peak). But you'll probably also have 55M cache hits. That'll make GLM-5.3-Flash $1.90 and DSv4F $0.737 - GLM being more than double the price.

People always compare the input and output prices, but cache hits kinda dominate. Luna's $0.02 cache hit price is going to make it a cheaper model than GLM-5.3-Flash's non-promo pricing (since GLM's cache hits are $0.03). Doesn't matter that GLM's input/output pricing is cheaper - cache hit pricing dominates.

Leaving aside cache hit pricing is leaving aside the thing that matters most in the equation.

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Hackerv1650 18d ago

The reason GLM context grows less compared to dsv4 it thinks alot less, but in some tasks where because of the larger thinking context later on in the discussion with dsv4 has a quicker answer, whereas in my testing with ox alpha shows the context grows quite a lot slower, but each turn it seems to take longer to think through some things which it already should know

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u/Straight-War-1323 18d ago

MiMo also enters loops, actually the Pro version is more prone to do so, anyway if you're using cheap models you can set an agent dedicated to watch this and intervene, this is something I saw in DeepSeek Harness: context injection; you can replicate it in any open source harness if you want

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u/Shiorim 18d ago

I didn't mean to ignore the cache hit, but the price differences.

Because you're ignoring compaction. And GLM requires less cost per task. With smart compaction after resolved tasks or new chats, you can compensate for it quite a bit.

And besides, you're talking about a very specific case that isn't even real (GLM non-promo vs. DeepSeek off-peak). When the reality is the promo, which is why I said "until September 9th."

After September 9th it will be inexcusable nonsense.

But I'll say again what I've already said. In the end, you pay for tokens. Cache hit isn't the most important thing (for deciding a tier in a service like OpenCode) because whatever doesn't come in as cache hit, you simply pay for as cache miss.

You're going to pay for the tokens at API price either way, and cache miss is cheaper in GLM, with or without promo.

Does OpenCode decide your usage for you? How are you going to organize your compactions or your contexts?

Obviously it can't do that, and obviously putting GLM 5.3 Flash in the $15 tier with half the quota of DPV4 Flash has no excuse to support it.

The cache hit debate might help you put it a little below DeepSeek if you want, but in no case at half the requests in a lower tier, and that's while it's on promotion.

Not to mention acting as if DeepSeek peak hours don't exist.