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We benchmarked reasoning GLM-5 versus instruct Qwen3-235B and DeepSeek V4-Flash on 2026-07-10: equal correctness, but 4x slower and 50x pricier on simple tasks.

We benchmarked six LLM APIs for chatbots on 2026-07-10: Qwen3-235B (1.85s), DeepSeek V4-Flash and Kimi K2 fit live chat, while GLM-5 runs too slow.

We benchmarked six Chinese LLM APIs on cost and latency for high-volume workloads. Qwen3-235B and DeepSeek V4-Flash bill up to 50x less than GLM-5 at parity.

We tested 6 Chinese LLMs on a function-calling task 2026-07: all emitted the correct tool call, so Qwen3-235B and DeepSeek V4-Flash win on cost and speed.

We benchmarked 6 Chinese LLM APIs on summarization on 2026-07-10: all met the 20-word limit. Qwen3-235B and DeepSeek V4-Flash won on speed and cost.

We benchmarked 6 Chinese LLM APIs on text classification: all correct, so speed and cost decide. Qwen3-235B was fastest (0.79s) and cheapest per call.

We tested 6 Chinese LLMs on RAG grounded refusal: all refused correctly, so Qwen3-235B and DeepSeek V4-Flash win on latency and cost. Verified table, 2026-07.

We benchmarked six LLMs on English-to-Chinese translation on 2026-07-10. Qwen3-235B and DeepSeek V4-Flash ranked fastest and cheapest; all six passed.

We tested 6 LLMs on JSON extraction: all returned valid exact-key JSON. Qwen3-235B cheapest at 2.2s/$0.000018, fastest Chinese model; GLM-5 the slowest.

We benchmarked six Chinese LLM APIs plus GPT-4o on six real tasks. All passed 6/6, so we rank by measured latency and cost, use case by use case here.

Qwen3-Max routes for about $0.78 per million input tokens and $3.90 output via OpenRouter, while Alibaba's own International endpoint charges roughly…

On one identical coding prompt, Qwen3-Coder routed via OpenRouter billed $0.0000656 and returned in 1.50 seconds, while DeepSeek V4-Flash on its official…

Qwen3-Coder is Alibaba's coding-specialist tier, and measured via OpenRouter it routes at $0.22 per million input tokens and $1.80 output, served as…

Routed through OpenRouter, Qwen3-Max costs $0.78 input and $3.90 output per million tokens against GPT-4o's $2.50 and $10.00, making Qwen roughly 3.2x…

At the cheap end DeepSeek wins on raw price: V4-Flash bills $0.14 in / $0.28 out on its official endpoint, while the closest cheap Qwen coding tier,…

Qwen-Plus is Alibaba's mid-tier general model, and measured via OpenRouter it routes at $0.26 input / $0.78 output per million tokens, roughly a third of…

For Qwen3-Max, the OpenRouter-routed price of $0.78 in / $3.90 out per million tokens is cheaper than Alibaba's own International endpoint, which runs…

Qwen3-Max routes through OpenRouter at $0.78 input and $3.90 output per 1M tokens, while Alibaba's own International endpoint runs about $2.40 / $12.00 on…

To calculate a Qwen API bill, multiply input tokens by the input rate and output tokens by the output rate, then sum them; the catch most teams miss is…

MiniMax-M2 runs roughly 10x cheaper than GPT-4o on both sides of the bill: about $0.255 input and $1.00 output per million tokens (measured via…

On raw API price, DeepSeek wins at the floor: V4-Flash runs $0.14 input / $0.28 output official, while MiniMax-M2 measured via OpenRouter lands at $0.255…

MiniMax-M2 is MiniMax's default general-and-coding tier, and the cheapest way in is OpenRouter at $0.255 input and $1.00 output per million tokens, a…

MiniMax-M1 is the legacy tier, and you can route it through OpenRouter at $0.40 input / $2.20 output per million tokens, or call it natively where MiniMax…

MiniMax-M2 runs coding tasks cheaply: a real 38-in/200-out coding call billed $0.0002514 in 2.95s, measured via OpenRouter.

MiniMax-M2, the default text tier, costs $0.255 per million input tokens and $1.00 per million output via OpenRouter, against $0.30/$1.20 on MiniMax's own…

To budget a MiniMax API workload, blend the input and output rates by your real token ratio: at MiniMax-M2's OpenRouter-routed $0.255 in / $1.00 out, a…

Yes, Qwen is available in the US: Alibaba Cloud Model Studio International serves it from a Singapore endpoint with roughly 1M free tokens for 90 days and…

Yes, MiniMax is available in the US: you can sign up directly at platform.minimax.io International, and you can also reach its models through OpenRouter…

Yes, GLM from Zhipu AI is available in the US through the Z.ai international platform, which offers a free Flash tier, and you can also reach GLM models…

GLM-4.6 runs roughly 6x cheaper than GPT-4o on both sides of the meter, about $0.43 versus $2.50 per million input tokens and $1.74 versus $10 output (GLM…

At the cheapest usable tier, DeepSeek V4-Flash ($0.14/$0.28 official) undercuts GLM, but GLM-4.5-Air (measured at $0.13/$0.85 via OpenRouter) wins on…

GLM-4.6 coding calls cost roughly $0.0003 each in our test, measured via OpenRouter, where one 30-token coding prompt returned 165 output tokens for…

GLM-4.6 runs $0.43 in / $1.74 out per million tokens routed through OpenRouter, undercutting Z.ai's own $0.60 / $2.20 official rate, while Z.ai direct…

To calculate GLM API costs, multiply your monthly input tokens by the model's input rate and your output tokens by the output rate, then add them: for…

Yes, GLM-4.7-Flash is genuinely free on Z.ai International, where input and output both bill at zero, but the same model costs $0.06 / $0.40 per million…

GLM-4.6 routes cheapest through OpenRouter at $0.43 per million input tokens and $1.74 per million output, undercutting Zhipu's own official Z.ai rate of…

GLM-4.5-Air is Zhipu's budget tier, and the cheapest paid way to reach it is OpenRouter at $0.13 input / $0.85 output per million tokens, undercutting…

The fastest Chinese LLM API we measured is DeepSeek V4-Flash, which returned a small call in 0.73 seconds on its official endpoint; among…

For the same Fibonacci coding prompt, DeepSeek V4-Flash on its official API cost about $0.0000374 per task, versus $0.000795 for GPT-4o and $0.001344 for…

DeepSeek V4-Flash bills input at $0.14 and output at $0.28 per million tokens, while OpenAI GPT-4o charges $2.50 and $10.00, so GPT-4o input runs about…

DeepSeek V4-Flash bills input at $0.14 and output at $0.28 per million tokens, which is about 21x cheaper input than Claude Sonnet 4.6 ($3/$15) and…

DeepSeek's API exposes only two real model names, V4-Flash and V4-Pro, and for most workloads V4-Flash wins: V4-Pro costs about 3x more and is materially…

For an early-stage startup running a typical chat product, DeepSeek API costs only a few dollars a month at 10 million tokens, because V4-Flash bills…

DeepSeek's API changed in four ways through mid-2026: deepseek-chat and deepseek-reasoner now resolve to deepseek-v4-flash, deepseek-r1 stopped being…

We could not confirm an official DeepSeek free API tier or current free-credit figure from primary sources, so we will not quote a dollar amount as fact;…

For an enterprise, DeepSeek's real cost is set by where you route the API, not the per-token rate: the official endpoint bills $0.14 input and $0.28…

To calculate a DeepSeek API bill, multiply input tokens by the input rate and output tokens by the output rate, sum the two, then discount the input side…

Every Chinese flagship we priced undercuts GPT-4o's $2.50 input and $10 output per million tokens, with DeepSeek V4-Flash at $0.14 input running about 18x…

Chinese LLM APIs cost a fraction of Claude Sonnet 4.6's $3/$15 per million tokens: DeepSeek V4-Flash bills $0.14/$0.28, GLM-4.6 routes at $0.43/$1.74, and…

Every major Chinese LLM API (DeepSeek, Qwen, GLM, Kimi, MiniMax) is reachable from the US today through an official international endpoint or OpenRouter,…

Across the major Chinese LLM families in 2026, DeepSeek V4-Flash anchors the floor at $0.14 input and $0.28 output per million tokens, while Qwen, GLM,…

Among the major Chinese LLM families, only GLM ships a genuinely free, no-expiry API tier (GLM-4.7-Flash and 4.5-Flash on z.ai); Qwen offers a time-boxed…

To estimate any Chinese LLM API bill, multiply input tokens by the input rate and output tokens by the output rate, then sum across calls: blended cost =…

The cheapest Qwen model by per-token rate is qwen3.5-flash at $0.065 input / $0.26 output per million tokens via OpenRouter, but our own test showed it…

The cheapest MiniMax model on a per-token basis is minimax-01 at $0.20 input and $1.10 output per million tokens (measured via OpenRouter), but m2.7 at…

The cheapest GLM model is GLM-4.7-Flash, which Z.ai offers free on its international platform; if you route through a third-party aggregator instead, the…

The cheapest way to use the DeepSeek API is the official api.deepseek.com endpoint on V4-Flash at $0.14 input and $0.28 output per million tokens, with…

The cheapest Chinese LLM API by sticker price is GLM-4.7-Flash at $0.06 per million input tokens (free on z.ai direct), edging Qwen3.5-Flash at $0.065,…

For a single coding turn, DeepSeek V4-Flash on its official endpoint is the cheapest credible option at roughly $0.0000374 per task, while qwen3-coder…

For most teams the best Chinese LLM API in 2026 is DeepSeek V4-Flash at $0.14 input and $0.28 output per million tokens, because it was both the cheapest…

Yes — Moonshot sells international API access in USD via platform.moonshot.ai, and Kimi K2 routes through OpenRouter. US access paths + compliance, explained.

The cheapest Kimi tier per-token is base K2 (OpenRouter kimi-k2 alias) at $0.57/$2.30 per 1M — but the reasoning tier can cost more per task. First-hand numbers.

Blend Kimi's input/output rates against your real token mix — base K2 ~$0.57/$2.30, K2.6 $0.95/$4.00 per 1M. Where output quietly inflates the bill, tested.

Filling Kimi's full 256K context once costs ~$0.19 in input alone on the K2.6 flagship, before any output token. Long-context pricing for Kimi's signature feature.

Base Kimi K2 (~$0.57/$2.30 per 1M) is roughly 4x cheaper than GPT-4o ($2.50/$10) both directions, with a 256K context GPT-4o can't match. The honest trade-off.

DeepSeek V4-Flash beats base Kimi K2 by a wide margin — $0.14/$0.28 vs $0.57/$2.30 per 1M, ~4x cheaper input, 8x output. What the price gap actually buys you.

Kimi K2.7-Code is $0.74/$3.50 per 1M via OpenRouter — pricier and slower per coding task than DeepSeek V4-Flash. The per-task numbers we measured ourselves.

Kimi K2 Thinking lists at $0.60/$2.50 per 1M — same rate as base K2 — yet cost ~9x more on an identical prompt. The reasoning tier's output blow-up, measured.

Base Kimi K2 runs ~$0.57/$2.30 per 1M via OpenRouter, near-parity with Moonshot's official $0.55/$2.20 — the third-party route isn't cheaper here. Why, with live data.

Base Kimi K2 is $0.57/$2.30 per 1M (OpenRouter), K2.6 flagship $0.95/$4.00 with 256K context. The full Kimi tier map, live-tested — don't budget against one 'Kimi' price.

DeepSeek's API is reachable from US IPs (~0.7s in our test) and takes US cards — but data sits in China and federal/state device bans apply.

DeepSeek V4-Pro is 75% off to May 31: $0.435/$0.87 per 1M vs $1.74/$3.48 list. We tested it live — 2.1s vs V4-Flash's 0.7s. The catch isn't the price.

DeepSeek charges 2x more for output than input on V4-Flash, ~4x on R1. The multiplier — not the headline rate — sets your bill. Verified on a live call.

Cached input on DeepSeek V4-Flash is $0.0028/M vs $0.14 cache-miss — a 50x cut we confirmed live (512 of 557 tokens served from cache on the 2nd call).

A 1M-token job on DeepSeek V4-Flash costs $0.14 input + $0.28 output — but output took 79% of our live-test bill. Where the money actually goes.

DeepSeek V4-Flash costs $0.14/$0.28 per 1M tokens — 35-100x cheaper than GPT-5.5. Live-tested rates across official, OpenRouter, Together & SiliconFlow, plus the US compliance call.

The translator, payment rails, AI editor, API client, and gateway tools we actually use to access DeepSeek, Kimi, Qwen, GLM and other Chinese LLM APIs from outside mainland China.

ByteDance's Seedance 1.0 is their text-to-video and image-to-video foundation model. English SERP for 'seedance' is heavily polluted by wrapper sites — this is the real Volcengine Ark access path.

Zhipu AI's GLM-4 family is one of the cheapest Chinese LLMs per token. How to access it from abroad — real portal URL, signup flow, payment workarounds.

Alibaba runs both a Chinese and an international DashScope portal. Overseas developers should use the International one — English UI, Visa/Mastercard accepted, same Qwen models.

How to sign up for Moonshot's Kimi K2 API from outside mainland China. Real platform URL (not wrapper sites), Chinese-only console workflow with Immersive Translate, payment via Wise.

Step-by-step to access the DeepSeek API (V3 + R1) from outside mainland China. Real platform URL, overseas payment workarounds, comparison with the wrapper sites currently dominating Google.

When Moonshot's Kimi K2 becomes the right pick for coding work — whole-repo context, agentic tool-use, and where it stacks up against DeepSeek and Qwen.

A buyer's guide to the sub-$0.20-per-1M-token tier: Doubao Lite, GLM-4-Air, Yi Lightning, and how they stack up on quality, overseas access, and billing friction.

Side-by-side of DeepSeek V3 (fast chat) and R1 (extended reasoning): pricing, context window, benchmarks, and the exact workloads where one beats the other.