---
title: "GLM-5.2 vs Qwen3 Max Instruct"
canonical: "https://router.xark.io/models/compare/glm-5-2-vs-qwen3-max-instruct"
description: "GLM-5.2 vs Qwen3 Max Instruct priced at 100M input and 20M output tokens a month, with both rate cards, the licences and which of the two is callable today."
section: "model-comparisons"
updated: "2026-09-02"
source: "https://router.xark.io/models/compare/glm-5-2-vs-qwen3-max-instruct.md"
---

# GLM-5.2 vs Qwen3 Max Instruct

Qwen3 Max Instruct costs less than GLM-5.2 at every mix of input and output — $0.49/M against $0.82/M on input and $1.95/M against $2.55/M on output — so at 100M input and 20M output tokens a month it comes to $88.00 against $133.00, a difference of $45.00, and the cheaper of the two is the one you cannot call yet. Qwen3 Max Instruct is catalogued but not currently servable — a request naming `qwen/qwen3-max-instruct` returns `no available channel` — so its figure is what it will cost once an upstream carries it, while GLM-5.2 can be called today at the rate above.

**Availability:** 7 of the 24 catalogued models are callable today. The rest are listed at their intended rate but no configured upstream serves them, so a request naming one returns `no available channel`. Every table below marks which is which.

## Cost at 100M input and 20M output tokens a month

| Model | Our cost | Official cost | Callable |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| GLM-5.2 | $133.00 | $228.00 | Yes |
| Qwen3 Max Instruct | $88.00 | $153.00 | No |

## Rates and specification

| Field | GLM-5.2 | Qwen3 Max Instruct |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Model id | `z-ai/glm-5.2` | `qwen/qwen3-max-instruct` |
| Publisher | Z.ai | Alibaba |
| Input | $0.82/M | $0.49/M |
| Output | $2.55/M | $1.95/M |
| Cached input | $0.16/M | $0.10/M |
| Capacity | 200K tokens | 256K tokens |
| Licence | MIT | Apache 2.0 |
| Released | Jun 30, 2026 | Apr 29, 2026 |
| Callable today | Yes | No |

## Reasons to pick GLM-5.2

- It is published by Z.ai under the MIT licence, where Qwen3 Max Instruct is Apache 2.0.
- It is callable today. Qwen3 Max Instruct is catalogued but not currently served by any upstream.
- The catalogue lists it for general-purpose production workloads, structured output and function calling at scale and bilingual EN/ZH applications.

## Reasons to pick Qwen3 Max Instruct

- It is not callable today — no configured upstream serves it, so the rate above is what it will cost rather than what you can spend.
- Input costs $0.49/M against GLM-5.2's $0.82/M, which decides the bill on input-heavy work — long documents in, short answers out.
- Output costs $1.95/M against GLM-5.2's $2.55/M, which is the whole bill on generation-heavy work where a short brief produces long copy.
- Cached input is $0.10/M against GLM-5.2's $0.16/M, and on an agent loop the repeated prefix is most of every request.
- It holds 256K in one request against 200K — 1.3× wider, which decides whether a long input is one call or a map-reduce.
- It is published by Alibaba under the Apache 2.0 licence, where GLM-5.2 is MIT.
- The catalogue lists it for products shipping into regulated or licence-sensitive contexts, multilingual applications beyond EN/ZH and jSON-mode and schema-constrained generation.

## Questions

### Which is cheaper, GLM-5.2 or Qwen3 Max Instruct?

Qwen3 Max Instruct, at 100M input and 20M output tokens a month: $88.00 against $133.00, a difference of $45.00 — 34% less. That holds at any ratio of input to output on this pairing, because Qwen3 Max Instruct has the lower rate on every column, not just the one the headline quotes. What the arithmetic does not tell you is whether both models do your job to the same standard; that is a measurement on your own prompts, not a number we can publish.

### Can I call both GLM-5.2 and Qwen3 Max Instruct today?

Only GLM-5.2. A request naming `z-ai/glm-5.2` reaches a live upstream and is billed at the rate above; `qwen/qwen3-max-instruct` returns `no available channel`, because no configured upstream carries Qwen3 Max Instruct yet. Its rate is published because it is what the model will cost, not because you can spend it today. 7 of the 24 models in this catalogue are callable right now; the rest are listed at their intended price and marked, so you find out here rather than from an error at call time.

### How much context does GLM-5.2 hold compared with Qwen3 Max Instruct?

Qwen3 Max Instruct takes 262,144 tokens (256K) in a single request against GLM-5.2's 204,800 (200K) — 1.3× wider. The window is a cost decision before it is a capability one: an input that does not fit has to be split, summarised in pieces and summarised again, which bills the source text more than once. Below that line the wider window is capacity you are not using.

### What licences are GLM-5.2 and Qwen3 Max Instruct under?

GLM-5.2 is published by Z.ai under MIT and Qwen3 Max Instruct by Alibaba under Apache 2.0. Where one of those is a plain MIT or Apache 2.0 text and the other is a publisher's own or a modified variant, the difference is real and lives in the document rather than in the name — user thresholds, field-of-use terms and attribution requirements all appear in licences of that kind. Each model's own page carries the longer answer, and the licence text carries the binding one.

### How do I switch between GLM-5.2 and Qwen3 Max Instruct?

Change the model id and nothing else. Both are served from `https://router.xark.io/api/v1` behind the same OpenAI-compatible contract — `z-ai/glm-5.2` and `qwen/qwen3-max-instruct` — so the request shape, the streaming frames, the usage block and the error envelope are identical between them. Send an explicit id and no substitution happens underneath you, which is what makes running both and comparing the two on your own traffic a change of one string rather than a migration. Qwen3 Max Instruct is not servable yet, so that swap is not available today.

### How do these rates compare with the official ones?

Both rows are published side by side rather than as a single discount claim. GLM-5.2 is 42% below Z.ai's official rate and Qwen3 Max Instruct is 43% below Alibaba's, which at 100M input and 20M output tokens a month is $133.00 against an official $228.00 for GLM-5.2, and $88.00 against $153.00 for Qwen3 Max Instruct. The claim on this site is only that our rate sits below the model publisher's own — not that no one else is cheaper. Where a third-party provider undercuts us on either model, that provider's rate is printed on that model's own page.

## Full model pages

- [GLM-5.2](https://router.xark.io/models/glm-5-2.md)
- [Qwen3 Max Instruct](https://router.xark.io/models/qwen3-max-instruct.md)