Running the same AI workload through Anthropic’s Claude costs $4,811. Running it through Zhipu’s GLM model costs $544. That’s nearly a 9x price difference for equivalent work, and enterprise customers have started doing the math.
Chinese AI companies are undercutting OpenAI and Anthropic so aggressively on price that the two most prominent US AI firms are now scrambling to respond. OpenAI is reportedly considering major token price cuts, and Anthropic is expected to follow. The timing could not be worse: both companies are preparing for public market debuts.
The numbers tell the story
A comparison of workload costs across leading AI models paints a stark picture. Anthropic’s Claude rings in at $4,811 per workload. OpenAI’s ChatGPT comes in lower at $3,357, but still far above the Chinese alternatives. DeepSeek prices the same workload at $1,071. Moonshot’s Kimi model does it for $948. And Zhipu’s GLM sits at just $544.
According to recent data, 45% of companies now spend over $100,000 per month on AI, up from 20% the prior year.
Chinese firms including DeepSeek, Moonshot (Kimi), Zhipu, Alibaba’s Qwen, and Xiaomi have achieved these price points by focusing on inference efficiency, prioritizing cost-per-task optimization over raw benchmark performance.
IPO timing creates a strategic bind
Anthropic filed for an IPO after closing a $65 billion Series H funding round that valued the company at $965 billion. OpenAI has also filed confidentially.
OpenAI is reportedly considering drastic reductions in token prices as of early June 2026, a move that would signal the company views the Chinese pricing threat as existential rather than peripheral.