Grok API pricing: every model, every rate
xAI ships fewer models than its competitors but revises them often. Below is the currently billable set.
grok-4.1. Rates checked 2026-09-16.Full rate card
32 billable models in total, 29 of them text models. On those text models: 0 carry a rate verified against the vendor's own published pricing, the rest are gateway rates only. USD per 1M tokens, checked 2026-09-16.
| Model | Input | Output | Out/In | Official (in / out) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
grok-2-vision-1212 | $2.5 | $12.5 | 5.0× | not verified |
grok-2 | $1.5 | $7.5 | 5.0× | not verified |
grok-2-1212 | $1.5 | $1.5 | 1.0× | not verified |
grok-3 | $1.5 | $7.5 | 5.0× | not verified |
grok-4 | $1.5 | $7.5 | 5.0× | not verified |
grok-4-0709 | $1.5 | $7.5 | 5.0× | not verified |
grok-4-deepsearch | $1.5 | $7.5 | 5.0× | not verified |
grok-4.2 | $1.5 | $7.5 | 5.0× | not verified |
grok-2-imageGen | $1 | — | not verified | |
grok-2-search | $1 | — | not verified | |
grok-3-deepersearch | $1 | $3 | 3.0× | not verified |
grok-3-deepsearch | $1 | $5 | 5.0× | not verified |
grok-3-reasoner | $1 | $5 | 5.0× | not verified |
grok-3-reasoning | $1 | $5 | 5.0× | not verified |
grok-3-search | $1 | $5 | 5.0× | not verified |
grok-4.1 | $1 | $5 | 5.0× | not verified |
grok-4.1-thinking | $1 | $5 | 5.0× | not verified |
grok-4.5 | $1 | $3 | 3.0× | not verified |
grok-4.6 | $1 | $3 | 3.0× | not verified |
grok-4-20-non-reasoning | $0.625 | $1.25 | 2.0× | not verified |
grok-4-20-reasoning | $0.625 | $1.25 | 2.0× | not verified |
grok-4.3 | $0.625 | $1.25 | 2.0× | not verified |
grok-build-0.1 | $0.5 | $1 | 2.0× | not verified |
grok-4.1-fast | $0.2 | $1.5 | 7.5× | not verified |
grok-4.2-fast | $0.2 | $1.5 | 7.5× | not verified |
grok-code-fast-1 | $0.2 | $1.5 | 7.5× | not verified |
grok-3-mini | $0.15 | $0.2505 | 1.7× | not verified |
grok-4-1-fast-non-reasoning | $0.1 | $0.25 | 2.5× | not verified |
grok-4-1-fast-reasoning | $0.1 | $0.25 | 2.5× | not verified |
grok-4-fast | $0.1 | $0.25 | 2.5× | not verified |
grok-4-fast-non-reasoning | $0.1 | $0.25 | 2.5× | not verified |
grok-4-fast-reasoning | $0.1 | $0.25 | 2.5× | not verified |
Output is billed at a multiple of input on most models. The Out/In column is that multiple — it matters more than the input price once output dominates your bill.
Across 29 priced text models the blended rate spans $0.35 (grok-4-1-fast-non-reasoning) to $9 (grok-4.2) per 1M tokens — a 26× spread. Picking the wrong tier is usually the single most expensive mistake here.
What xAI costs at three usage levels
Priced on grok-4.1 at $1 in / $5 out per 1M tokens, with a 5:1 input-to-output ratio — roughly what an
interactive workload produces.
| Usage level | Tokens per month (in / out) | Monthly cost grok-4.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Light pilot or side project | 5M / 1M | $10.00 |
| Working one product in production | 50M / 10M | $100.00 |
| Heavy high-volume pipeline | 500M / 100M | $1,000.00 |
This is the model we cover in depth for this vendor. Swap in your own token split in the calculator.
Same budget, other vendors
3 models from other vendors priced within 35% of
grok-4.1 on a blended rate — the cheapest, the dearest and one in between.
This is the horizontal check a single-vendor pricing page cannot give you.
| Model | Vendor | In / out per 1M | vs this |
|---|---|---|---|
doubao-lite-128k | ByteDance | $2 / $2 | −33.3% |
claude-sonnet-5 | Anthropic | $1 / $5 | same |
hunyuan-large | Tencent | $2 / $6 | +33.3% |
Blended comparison (input + output per 1M tokens). Price is one axis — these are the models worth testing side by side at this budget, not interchangeable substitutes.
Why the output rate decides the bill
Across the 27 priced xAI text models, the output rate runs from 1.7× to 7.5× the input rate, with a median of 5.0×. Output tokens are what a chat or agent turn produces — on a typical workload they are the smaller half of the token count but the larger half of the bill.
Worked out: at a 5.0× multiple, a job whose token count is 80% input still spends 56% of its cost on the output it generates. Comparing vendors on the input rate alone hides that.
What xAI is good at
Grok is competitive on real-time and search-adjacent workloads.
Detailed pages for xAI models
The models we cover in depth, each with worked cost at three usage levels and a comparison against similarly priced alternatives.
- Grok 4.1 — $1 / $5 per 1M tokens
Other vendors
Every rate card here is built the same way, from the same price snapshot (2026-09-16), so the numbers are comparable across vendors:
Anthropic · OpenAI · Google · DeepSeek · Alibaba · Zhipu · Moonshot · Meta · MiniMax · ByteDance
FAQ
How much does xAI charge per million tokens?
Across the 29 priced text models in this catalogue, the blended rate (input plus output per 1M tokens) runs from $0.35 on grok-4-1-fast-non-reasoning to $9 on grok-4.2, as of 2026-09-16. The spread is what matters: choosing the wrong tier inside one vendor usually costs more than switching vendor.
What is the cheapest xAI model for high-volume work?
grok-4-1-fast-non-reasoning is the lowest blended rate here at $0.1 input and $0.25 output per 1M tokens. On a Heavy workload — 500M input and 100M output tokens a month — that bills about $75.00. At the other end, the same workload on grok-4.2 costs about $1,500.00.
Is xAI cheaper through a gateway than buying direct?
We do not claim a discount on xAI. Its list pricing is not published in a stable machine-readable form, so every figure on this page is a gateway rate with no verified official price to compare against. Check the number in your dashboard before committing to a budget.
How does output pricing change a xAI bill?
Output is billed at a multiple of input on every model priced here, so the input rate alone never predicts the bill. A workload that is mostly input tokens still lands most of its cost on the output column once that multiple is applied. Price your own in/out split in the calculator rather than extrapolating from the headline input rate.
Does Grok have a cheap tier for high-volume traffic?
Yes — the fast, non-reasoning variants are the low-cost entry into the family and sit in the sub-$1 blended band. The reasoning tiers multiply both rates, so they are worth reserving for the calls that actually need them.
See all 827 models → or use the cost calculator with your own token split.