Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Z.ai: GLM 5.1: Live Promos, Pricing, Hidden Fees & Latency
Verified 2026 FinOps benchmark comparing Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.5 (mistralai/mistral-medium-3-5) vs Z.ai: GLM 5.1 (z-ai/glm-5.1). Simulate cache read multipliers, context cliffs, MAU bills, and P90 latency.
Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.5 (mistralai/mistral-medium-3-5) 2026 Q4 Developer Promotion & Volume Credits
Official 2026 Q4 promotion for Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.5: Activate ephemeral prefix caching to slash input costs by 50% (down to $0.75/1M) or route via asynchronous Batch API for 50% off standard token rates.
Z.ai: GLM 5.1 (z-ai/glm-5.1) 2026 Q4 Developer Promotion & Volume Credits
Official 2026 Q4 promotion for Z.ai: GLM 5.1: Activate ephemeral prefix caching to slash input costs by 50% (down to $0.483/1M) or route via asynchronous Batch API for 50% off standard token rates.
In Etuki October 2026 FinOps telemetry comparing Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.5 (API ID: mistralai/mistral-medium-3-5) vs Z.ai: GLM 5.1 (API ID: z-ai/glm-5.1), Z.ai: GLM 5.1 offers lower standard input pricing at $0.966/1M tokens ($3.036/1M output), while Z.ai: GLM 5.1 leads in cached prefix economics at $0.483/1M tokens (50% discount). Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.5 achieves a 0ms faster P90 time-to-first-token latency (280ms vs 280ms).
Auto-discovered via live global telemetry registry.
Auto-discovered via live global telemetry registry.
| Specification / FinOps Dimension | Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.5 | Z.ai: GLM 5.1 | Verified Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Official Vendor API ID | mistralai/mistral-medium-3-5 | z-ai/glm-5.1 | Pinned Snapshot IDs |
| Standard Input / Output (per 1M) | $1.5 / $7.5 | $0.966 / $3.036 | Z.ai: GLM 5.1 |
| Cache Read Price (per 1M) | $0.75/1M (50% Off) | $0.483/1M (50% Off) | Z.ai: GLM 5.1 |
| Context Window / Max Output | 256K In / 205K Out | 200K In / 125K Out | Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.5 |
| P90 First-Token / Edge Latency | 280ms | 280ms | Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.5 (-0ms) |
Mistral Medium 3.5 is a dense 128B instruction-following model from Mistral AI. It supports text and image inputs with text output, and is designed for agentic workflows, coding, a
GLM-5.1 delivers a major leap in coding capability, with particularly significant gains in handling long-horizon tasks. Unlike previous models built around minute-level interaction
Real-Time Stack Cost & Hidden-Fee Simulator (MAU / Token / Egress / GMV)
Calibrated with Reddit r/FinOps & r/devops telemetry: Includes Context Caching, Bandwidth Egress, and MoR Tax
🛰️Switch from Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.5 to Z.ai: GLM 5.1
GLM-5.1 delivers a major leap in coding capability, with particularly significant gains in handling long-horizon tasks. Unlike previous models built around minute-level interaction Verified P90 latency of 280ms.