Grok 4 is xAI's cheapest model at $2/1M input tokens — 0% less than the flagship Grok 4. For the best capability per dollar, Grok 4.5 is the smarter budget pick.
The safest xai model worth using default, the cheaper option worth trying first, and the specialist pick — before you read the detail below.
Grok 4.5 is the strongest answer here for xai model worth using — pick it when quality of output matters more than the $2.00/1M/1M input you pay for it.
GPT-5.1-Codex-Max is the cheaper way in for xai model worth using, at $1.25/1M/1M input against Grok 4.5's $2.00/1M/1M.
Grok 4 is the fastest of these for xai model worth using — worth it when latency is what the reader notices, not the last few points of reasoning depth.
Grok 4 is the lowest-cost xAI model: $2/1M input, $6/1M output.
Grok 4.5 is the best capability-per-dollar pick (budget score 62/100).
Grok 4 costs 1x more on input — reserve it for work where quality is the bottleneck.
Choose Grok 4 for high-volume, low-stakes tasks like classification, extraction, and drafts.
Choose Grok 4.5 as the everyday default if you want one budget model.
Route only the hardest tasks to Grok 4 — a two-tier setup usually cuts spend 60–80%.
Switch the scoring lens to see whether the xai model worth using answer changes when cost, speed, or long-document depth leads the decision.
xAI / Balanced / Aug 27, 2026
Finishes agent tasks in half the turns — cheap where it counts.
Ranks models by the broadest mix of coding, writing, research, and long-context usefulness.
You need a published SWE-bench score to justify the pick, or your prompts routinely cross 200K tokens where the price doubles.
Where the xai model worth using recommendation shifts once you weigh price or latency differently.
Strong coding value with 2M context — an underrated pick at this price.
Best cost-per-solved-task coding agent — efficiency over ceiling.
Finishes agent tasks in half the turns — cheap where it counts.
List prices and published scores — the numbers this page's pick is built from.
| Model | Input | Output | Est. month | Context | Speed | Coding | Writing | Research |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grok 4.5xAI | $2.00/1M | $6.00/1M | $32 | 500k tokens | Fast | 94 | 72 | 84 |
| Grok 4xAI | $2.00/1M | $6.00/1M | $32 | 2M tokens | Fast | 92 | 70 | 86 |
| Grok 4.6xAI | $2.00/1M | $6.00/1M | $32 | 500k tokens | Fast | 86 | 84 | 88 |
Scores out of 100 — how we evaluate models. “Est. month” is 10M in / 2M out at list price: a ceiling, no discounts.
Why each one is on the shortlist for xai model worth using, what it is genuinely good at, and where we would steer you away from it.
Ranked first here for xai model worth using: 94/100 on coding, with the widest margin of anything in this line-up.
xAI's first coding- and agent-focused model — the first full-scale deployment of the 1.5T-parameter V9 MoE base, trained with real developer-session data from Cursor.
You need the highest solve rate per attempt or verified low hallucination — Claude Opus 5 is the safer premium pick.
The efficiency play among coding agents. Grok 4.5 wins on cost-per-solved-task and marathon sessions, not raw capability. If your agent bill is the problem, it's the answer; if quality ceiling is the problem, it isn't.
Full pricing, benchmark table and release notes on the Grok 4.5 page.
Here for latency: it answers fastest of anything listed for xai model worth using, at 92/100 on coding.
xAI's latest flagship with strong coding benchmark performance, a 2M token context window, and aggressive pricing at $2/$6 per million tokens.
You need the highest writing quality or the most reliable production-grade output — Claude wins both.
Strong coding benchmark with excellent value. The $2/$6 pricing and 2M context make it competitive with more expensive alternatives.
Full pricing, benchmark table and release notes on the Grok 4 page.
Rounds out the shortlist for xai model worth using at 86/100 on coding.
Finishes agent tasks in half the turns — cheap where it counts. Full Grok 4.6 review →
UseRightAI recommendations are based on practical decision factors people actually feel in day-to-day use.
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Grok 4 at $2/1M input and $6/1M output tokens. Strong coding value with 2M context — an underrated pick at this price.
Grok 4.5 is the best capability-per-dollar pick in xAI's lineup (budget score 62/100). It handles fast, token-efficient coding agents well — step up to Grok 4 only where quality visibly falls short.
Grok 4 costs $2/1M input vs $2/1M for Grok 4 — a 0% saving on input tokens.
Grok 4 — 2M tokens at $2/1M input. Context is where budget models are least compromised: you usually lose reasoning depth before you lose window size, so a cheap model is often a perfectly good choice for summarising or extracting from long documents.
Claude Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6 lead on pure coding benchmarks. Less established ecosystem and tooling than OpenAI or Anthropic. Avoid it if you need the highest writing quality or the most reliable production-grade output — Claude wins both.
On a moderate workload of 10M input and 2M output tokens, Grok 4 runs about $32.00 against $32.00 for Grok 4 — a difference of $0.00 a month at the same volume. Output tokens dominate the bill on both, so the length of the responses you generate matters far more than the length of your prompts.
Mixing is almost always cheaper for the same quality. Route high-volume, low-stakes work — classification, extraction, first drafts, routine agent steps — to Grok 4, and reserve Grok 4 for the calls where a wrong answer costs real time. Teams that split this way typically cut spend substantially without a quality drop anyone notices, because most tokens in a real workload are not hard problems.