I use Opus 5.5 at work and I use Sonnet 5.5 at home. Sonnet 5.5 medium according to AA cost per task is $0.48 per task, while GLM 5.3 (max) is $2.01 (opus 5.5 high is $1.82). GLM 5.3 flash is $0.28 per task and Deepseek 4.1 flash 1017 is $0.26.

So it seems like Sonnet 5.5 medium, GLM 5.3 flash and Deepseek V4.1 flash 1017 are all in a similar space in capacity and price, however the $20 anthropic sub will get you like $200-$300 in sonnet 5.5...

Another bonus is that sonnet uses a fraction of the overall tokens and finishes much faster than the average chinese model, so your work goes faster (Sonnet 5.5 medium in 2 minutes, Deepseek 1017 in 6.5 minutes, GLM 5.3 flash in 13 minutes...)

I still don't get why paying for chinese inference makes sense. I should try Haiku 5.5 high/max because it's posting higher numbers than Deepseek V4.1 flash for half the price