Zhipu Qingyan 智谱清言 (ChatGLM)
Zhipu's GLM-powered assistant, plus a GLM coding subscription
Overview
Zhipu Qingyan (智谱清言, ChatGLM) is Zhipu's AI assistant for chat, writing, documents, images and Qingying video on GLM-5.3, with the international chat.z.ai, a pay-as-you-go GLM API and the GLM Coding Plan for Claude Code, Cursor and other tools. Free chat; memberships from ¥79 a month; Coding Plan from $18.
Pricing
Pricing shown for reference only. These figures reflect RECATOOLS research as of 2 Oct 2026 and may be out of date or incomplete. This is not financial or purchasing advice — always confirm the current price on the provider’s official website before making any decision.
- Optional add-on to free chat
- SVIP and points packs also sold
- 10,000 credits a week
- GLM-5.3 and GLM-5.3-Flash
- 20+ agent tools incl. Claude Code and ZCode
- 6x Lite usage
- Priority access to flagship models
- Curated MCP tools
- 14x Lite usage
- First access to flagship models
- Dedicated resources at peak
- 66,000 credits a week per seat
- Seat and permission management
- Centralised billing
What you can produce with Zhipu Qingyan 智谱清言 (ChatGLM)
- Free AI chat, writing and document reading
- Image generation and Qingying video
- International chat.z.ai on GLM-5.3-Flash
- GLM Coding Plan for Claude Code, Cursor and Cline
- Pay-as-you-go GLM API with free Flash models
- iOS and Mac apps
Qingyan is a capable, free Chinese AI assistant backed by Zhipu's strong GLM models, and the GLM Coding Plan offers an affordable alternative model for coding agents, with off-peak discounts in Singapore time. Prices have risen repeatedly in 2026, the newest model's licence is less permissive than earlier MIT releases, and Zhipu's benchmark claims are its own. Good for Chinese-speaking users and cost-conscious developers; check the licence before building products on GLM-5.3.
What we found
Zhipu Qingyan (智谱清言), branded ChatGLM, is the consumer AI assistant from Zhipu, the Beijing company behind the GLM family of language models. On web, iOS and Mac it offers chat, writing, document and knowledge-base reading, image generation, Qingying video generation and video calls, and the international chat service at chat.z.ai runs on GLM-5.3-Flash. The company also sells the GLM Coding Plan, a subscription for using its models inside coding tools such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Cline and its own ZCode, and a pay-as-you-go API. Its latest models, GLM-5.3 and GLM-5.3-Flash, arrived in August 2026; GLM-5.3 carries its own licence requiring a security review before very large model-as-a-service providers use it commercially, while GLM-5.2 and earlier models remain MIT-licensed. Zhipu reports a 50 per cent gain for GLM-5.3 on its in-house coding benchmark, its own result.
Zhipu was founded in 2019 out of Tsinghua University's knowledge-engineering lab by Professor Tang Jie and is led by chief executive Zhang Peng. It listed in Hong Kong on 8 January 2026, a day before MiniMax, and its market value passed HK$1 trillion in June; its listed parent renamed itself Z.AI Co., Ltd. in July, according to market data. It raised coding-plan prices in February and API prices in April. The international Z.ai service is run by a Singapore company.
Chatting with Qingyan is free after signing in, with optional memberships: on the Chinese App Store a monthly plan costs ¥79 and an annual ¥859, and on the Singapore store S$14.98 a month. The GLM Coding Plan, moved to weekly credits in July 2026, costs $18 a month for Lite, $80 for Pro and $168 for Max, with 20 to 30 per cent off for quarterly or yearly billing and half-rate usage outside weekday peak hours in Singapore time; team seats start at $88. API use is pay-as-you-go, with some Flash models free.
The Chinese App Store rates Qingyan 4.1 from 5,874 ratings. It suits Chinese-speaking users and developers wanting GLM models.
Compiled by RECATOOLS from public sources: vendor documentation and pricing, code repositories and published reporting.
Frequently asked questions
About this listing
This entry was compiled from publicly available data including Zhipu Qingyan 智谱清言 (ChatGLM)'s official website, press releases, documentation, and reputable third-party publications. RECATOOLS is not affiliated with Zhipu Qingyan 智谱清言 (ChatGLM) unless explicitly stated.
Third-party AI tools update their pricing, features, availability, and policies frequently. Information here may be outdated by the time you read this — we make reasonable efforts to keep listings current, but cannot guarantee absolute accuracy.
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