GLM Coding Plan vs OpenCode Go: Which Cap Hits First

Z.ai’s GLM Coding Plan and OpenCode Go get compared on the sticker: $18 against $10. That’s the wrong number. One sells a single credit pool for the GLM models. The other sells separate limits for every model on its list, and GLM-5.3 is now one of them. Different shapes, different walls.

Quick Answer

• Pick GLM Lite ($18) if you live in GLM-5.3 all week. Z.ai estimates Lite’s credits at 48–104 million GLM-5.3 tokens a week. OpenCode Go caps GLM-5.3 at about 1,080 requests a month.
• Pick OpenCode Go ($10) if you switch models by task. Cheap models are close to unlimited; flagship models are tightly capped.
• Only want a taste of GLM? OpenCode Go runs GLM-5.3 at 220 requests per five hours and GLM-5.3-Flash at 6,320.
• The wall: GLM stops at a weekly credit reset. OpenCode lets you top up credit.

Prices and limits from both vendors’ pages and docs, re-checked 2026-10-30.

GLM Coding Plan vs OpenCode Go, Side by Side

OpenCode also sells Go Teams at $20 per member, with $5 a month more per model than Go. Don’t confuse Go with OpenCode Zen: Zen is the pay-as-you-go side, Go is the subscription.

What Do 10,000 GLM Credits a Week Buy?

Z.ai publishes the formula: credits = (input × multiplier + cached input × multiplier + output × multiplier) ÷ 10,000. GLM-5.3 runs at 6.9 / 1.7 / 24; GLM-5.3-Flash at 2.3 / 0.56 / 8. MCP tool calls cost credits too.

Off-peak use costs half. Peak is only Monday to Friday, 14:00–18:00 Singapore time, so most of the week is off-peak.

Lite costs 33% more per credit than Max. Bigger tiers are genuinely cheaper per unit here—if you use them. Z.ai’s own token estimate for Lite: 48–104 million GLM-5.3 tokens a week at a 95–98% cache hit rate, the top of that range only if you stay off-peak.

What Are the OpenCode Go Limits per Model?

OpenCode sets a monthly dollar limit for each model and publishes estimated requests per five hours. On the $10 plan:

That’s a 315x spread inside one $10 subscription: 110 requests on Kimi K3, 34,670 on DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (which needs the Global region switched on in your privacy settings). You don’t buy a plan. You buy a different plan for every model, on one invoice.

Can OpenCode Go Run GLM-5.3?

Yes. GLM-5.3 gets 220 requests per five hours and a $15 monthly limit on Go, about 1,080 requests a month by OpenCode’s estimate. Go Plus raises that to 1,760 requests per five hours and $120, the biggest jump on its table.

So Go is the cheap way to try GLM-5.3. It isn’t a cheap way to live in it.

Which Cap Hits First?

Both plans let you burn 20% of the larger allowance in any five hours. After that, one is a wall you can see coming and can’t pay to pass. The other is a toll booth.

How This Was Checked

• Sources: z.ai/subscribe, docs.z.ai/devpack/overview and docs.z.ai/devpack/usage-policy, opencode.ai/go and opencode.ai/v2/docs/console/go, read 2026-10-30; plan catalog behind our AI coding plan guide.
• Cost per 1,000 credits = price ÷ (weekly credits × 52 ÷ 12 ÷ 1,000), our arithmetic.
• OpenCode request counts are the vendor’s own estimates, and they move between table updates.
• Not tested hands-on. Nothing here is a speed or quality claim. If neither plan fits, the AI subscription finder ranks 224 plans for your workload.

Neither plan is the cheap one. Pick the set of limits you’ll actually check before you hit them, because the bill arrives at the cap either way.