Zhipu raises prices by another 10% and releases GLM-5.1, causing the stock price to surge!

China’s AI monetization wave continues to accelerate, and Zhipu has become the latest major player to raise prices again in the wake of a new product launch.

This week, Zhipu officially released its next-generation open-source model GLM-5.1. Meanwhile, the model aggregation platform OpenRouter shows that Zhipu’s GLM has been increased in price again by 10%. Its cloud-based usage prices have been raised by 8% to 17% compared with the older GLM-5 Turbo, which is also at least the second time the company has raised prices since 2026.

The news boosted market sentiment: during trading, Zhipu’s stock price surged by nearly 19% at one point, and as of now, the gain is 15.92%.

After this price hike, the Token price for GLM-5.1 in the Coding scenario has come close to the level of Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4.6, indicating that Zhipu is gradually aligning its product pricing with international top-tier competitors. During an earnings call, CEO Zhang Peng said the company expects its cloud model business to achieve “exponential growth.”

A second price increase, extending the monetization offensive

This was not the first time Zhipu has raised prices this year. On February 12, Zhipu implemented a structural pricing adjustment for its GLM Coding Plan package, with the overall increase starting from 30%.

At the time, in its pricing adjustment letter, Zhipu clearly stated that the price increases were due to “continuous strong market demand, with rapid growth in the user base and call volume.” The company also increased investment in compute capacity and model optimization to ensure service stability under high load. The plan canceled the first-purchase discount but retained quarterly and annual subscription discounts; prices for already-subscribed users remained unchanged, and the new prices took effect on the day of release.

Two months later, Zhipu has made another move. Although this round’s adjustment is smaller than the Coding package price hike in February, it covers a wider range and involves multiple billing dimensions such as cloud input Tokens.

GLM-5.1 is positioned as a next-generation open-source model, with major upgrades in programming capabilities and handling long-cycle tasks. According to Zhipu’s official statement, the model can run continuously on its own for eight hours, and its programming performance is close to Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6.

Industry follow-through, with profit pressure driving pricing restructuring

Zhipu’s move is not an isolated case. Chinese AI leaders such as Alibaba and Tencent have recently raised their fee standards as well. The underlying drivers come from two sides: first, the rapid surge in demand for AI-agent-like services; second, pressure from investors for companies to accelerate realizing profits.

Zhipu disclosed last month that its full-year 2025 loss widened to RMB 4.7 billion (about $688 million). However, its stock price at the time still surged by 35% at one point. The market focused on its monetization prospects rather than the losses in the current period. With the release of GLM-5.1 coinciding with another price increase, it further reinforced investors’ confidence in Zhipu’s path to commercialization, supporting the stock price’s continued strong performance.

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