# Claude Opus 4.8 vs GLM 5.2

On provider list prices, GLM 5.2 costs $1.40 per million input tokens against $5 for Claude Opus 4.8: 3.6x apart. Output is $4.40 against $25 (5.7x). On Allocate both bill at list plus the 7% transaction fee.

## Specifications

| | Claude Opus 4.8 | GLM 5.2 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Lab | Anthropic | Zai Org |
| Access | API only | Open weights |
| Context window | 200K tokens | 256K tokens |
| List price, input | $5 / M tokens | $1.40 / M tokens |
| List price, output | $25 / M tokens | $4.40 / M tokens |
| Cached input | n/a | $0.26 / M tokens |
| License | Proprietary API | Not listed |
| Fine-tunable | No | Yes |

Specifications and provider list prices from the Allocate catalog, checked 2026-07-08. Billed price is list plus the 7% transaction fee.

## What the numbers say

Take 1,000,000 requests a month at 1,200 input and 350 output tokens each. That workload costs $3,220 a month on GLM 5.2 and $14,750 on Claude Opus 4.8 at list: a gap of $11,530, or 4.6x.

GLM 5.2 reads 256K tokens per request against 200K for Claude Opus 4.8, 1.3x the window. That decides which one can take whole documents without splitting them.

## Choose Claude Opus 4.8 for

- Hardest reasoning problems
- High-stakes analysis
- Escalation tier for agents

## Choose GLM 5.2 for

- Agents on open weights
- Code and structured outputs
- Fine-tuning toward an owned model

## Common questions

### Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.8 or GLM 5.2?

GLM 5.2, on this workload shape. At list prices it is $1.40/$4.40 per million tokens in and out against $5/$25 for Claude Opus 4.8. Billed on Allocate: $1.50/$4.71 against $5.35/$26.75, list plus 7%.

### Which has the bigger context window?

GLM 5.2: 262,144 tokens (256K) against 200,000 (200K) for Claude Opus 4.8.

### Can I fine-tune Claude Opus 4.8 or GLM 5.2?

GLM 5.2 publishes open weights (Not listed) and can be fine-tuned on your own data. Claude Opus 4.8 is a closed model served over API; its weights are not available.

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[HTML page](https://allocate.network/compare/opus-4-8-vs-z-ai-glm-5-2) · [Claude Opus 4.8](https://allocate.network/models/opus-4-8.md) · [GLM 5.2](https://allocate.network/models/z-ai-glm-5-2.md) · [Machine-readable catalog](https://allocate.network/catalog.json)