Physix Frontier · News Briefing Card (TMTPost · Sep 6, 2026)

Zhipu Launches Token Plans on Tmall; API Revenue Hits 86.5%

KEY FACTS

Zhipu AI has launched its GLM Coding Plan for individuals and teams on the Tmall flagship store, with monthly fees ranging from 118 to 1,078 yuan.
In the first half of 2026, Zhipu reported total revenue of 954 million yuan, with open platform and API business accounting for 86.5% of that figure.
By the end of August, token usage on Zhipu's MaaS platform had increased more than 40-fold compared to the start of the year, while paid daily active users grew by 603%.
Despite the surge in usage, Zhipu recorded an adjusted net loss of 1.964 billion yuan in the first half, with overall gross margins declining to 26.4%.

KEY DATA

118 yuanIndividual Lite Monthly Fee

954 million yuanH1 Total Revenue

86.5%API Revenue Share

1.964 billion yuanH1 Adjusted Net Loss

PHYSIX OBSERVATION

This move aims to lower the barrier for non-technical users to purchase computing power, driving a shift in AI services from project-based models toward utility-like infrastructure. While the API business has achieved simultaneous growth in volume and price to become the primary revenue driver, high inference costs continue to pressure gross margins and sustain massive losses. This highlights the core contradiction currently facing the large model industry: the race between commercial scale expansion and diminishing marginal computing costs, where channel innovation alone cannot solve fundamental profitability challenges.

Source: TMTPost report