Why cached input tokens save you money
When an AI agent works on a task — reviewing code, fixing a bug across files, running a long conversation — it sends the same context again and again: your instructions, the files it is working on, everything said so far. Only a small part is actually new each time.
With input caching, IG1 AI keeps what it has already read and processes only what is new. Responses start sooner, and the repeated context is billed at the cached input rate — about a quarter of the normal input price on GLM 5.3 Flash (0,09 € vs 0,35 €), a fifth on Qwen 3.6 35B (0,06 € vs 0,30 €).
Example — an agentic coding session on GLM 5.3 Flash: 100 API calls, ~20,000 tokens of context re-sent at each call, 65% cache hit rate.
| Without caching | With caching |
| Input tokens billed at full rate | 2.0 M | 0.7 M |
| Input tokens billed at cached rate | — | 1.3 M |
| Input cost | 0,70 € | 0,36 € |
| Session total (incl. 25K output tokens) | 0,73 € | 0,39 € |
−48% on input cost, −46% on the session — and a faster first token.