memex/notes/llm-alternative-providers.org

Alternative LLM Providers - Subscription & Token Efficient

• GLM-5 (Zhipu AI) - Research
  • Pricing Found
  • Comparison to Current
  • Status: Still researching subscription/unlimited plans
• Alternative Providers to Research
  • Tier 1: Subscription/Unlimited
  • Tier 2: Self-Hosted (One-time cost)
  • Tier 3: Open Source Providers
• Research Questions
• Next Steps Needed
• Current Recommendation

GLM-5 (Zhipu AI) - Research

Pricing Found

• Input: $1.00 per 1M tokens
• Output: $3.20 per 1M tokens
• Context: ~744B parameters, MoE architecture
• Training: 28.5T tokens

Comparison to Current

Model	Input Cost	Output Cost	Context	Free Tier
Gemini 2.0	$0	$0	1M	✅ Yes
GLM-5	$1.00	$3.20	?	?
Claude	$3.00	$15.00	200K	❌ No
GPT-4	varies	varies	128K	❌ No

Status: Still researching subscription/unlimited plans

Alternative Providers to Research

Tier 1: Subscription/Unlimited

1. Fireworks AI - Flat-rate inference
2. Together AI - Pay-per-token but high limits
3. Replicate - Metered but competitive
4. Groq - Ultra-fast, low cost

Tier 2: Self-Hosted (One-time cost)

1. RunPod - GPU rental for local models
2. Lambdalabs - GPU cloud
3. Local inference - RTX 4090, etc.

Tier 3: Open Source Providers

1. Ollama + RunPod/Lambda
2. llama.cpp quantized models
3. vLLM serving framework

Research Questions

1. Does GLM-5 offer unlimited subscription tier?
2. What about Fireworks/Together flat-rate plans?
3. AWS Bedrock with flat-rate (Amazon Q)?
4. Self-hosted llama3 70B vs GLM-5 quality?

Next Steps Needed

• Manual research required (web browsing limited)
• Check Zhipu pricing page directly
• Compare subscription tiers
• Evaluate self-hosting break-even

Current Recommendation

Until research complete:

• Stay on Gemini (free tier) ✅
• Use sparingly to avoid 60/minute rate limit
• 300K tokens/day = ~9M tokens/month free

If need more than 9M/month: Evaluate paid tiers