In my case: robotics, complex document analysis (typically 800K context).
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
However even with a high tier gaming machine you can run one of the Qwen models and it will be good at coding... like having an intern with boundless energy that will sometimes make mistakes but in general save you a lot of time. And for automating tasks involving scanning documents or creating summaries it will be brilliant.