Grok 4.6 wins on writing quality. Grok 4.5 wins on coding (94 vs 86). For most workflows, Grok 4.6 is the stronger default — finishes agent tasks in half the turns — cheap where it counts.
The shortest way to see the safest default, the lower-cost option, and the specialist pick before you read deeper.
Grok 4.6 is the safest overall answer here when you want the strongest default instead of the lowest list price.
Mistral: Mistral Nemo is the lower-cost option to start with when you still need useful output at scale.
Grok 4.5 is the better pick when response speed matters more than maximum reasoning depth.
Grok 4.5 leads on coding with a score of 94 vs 86 for Grok 4.6.
Both models are similarly priced — the decision comes down to capability, not cost.
Grok 4.6 is the stronger default for coding tasks.
Go with Grok 4.6 if you want one model to handle coding and reasoning — it targets long-running agents and multi-step codebase work.
Choose Grok 4.5 when your work is mostly fast and token-efficient coding agents — that is the workload it was tuned for.
Both models serve different primary workflows — Grok 4.6 for long-running agents and multi-step codebase work, Grok 4.5 for fast and token-efficient coding agents — so running each where it has a clear edge often beats forcing one to do both.
Switch the scoring lens to see whether the top answer changes when you care more about cost, speed, or long-document work.
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.
The fastest way to see where the recommendation shifts when your priority changes.
Finishes agent tasks in half the turns — cheap where it counts.
Best cost-per-solved-task coding agent — efficiency over ceiling.
Every figure below is the provider's list price or a published capability score — the same numbers the recommendation on this page is built from.
| Model | Input | Output | Est. month | Context | Speed | Coding | Writing | Research |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grok 4.6xAI | $2.00/1M | $6.00/1M | $32 | 500k tokens | Fast | 86 | 84 | 88 |
| Grok 4.5xAI | $2.00/1M | $6.00/1M | $32 | 500k tokens | Fast | 94 | 72 | 84 |
Capability scores are out of 100 and reflect our own weighting of published benchmarks and production signals — see how we evaluate models. “Est. month” assumes 10M input and 2M output tokens at list price, with no batch or caching discounts applied, so treat it as a ceiling.
What each one is genuinely good at, where it falls down, and the situations we would steer you away from it — not just the headline score.
xAI's long-horizon agent model — it finishes agentic tasks in roughly half the turns of its rivals, which makes it cheaper in practice than its per-token price suggests.
You need a published SWE-bench score to justify the pick, or your prompts routinely cross 200K tokens where the price doubles.
Buy it for turn efficiency, not for benchmark ceilings. On long agent runs, finishing in half the turns beats a model that scores two points higher and takes twice as many round trips.
Released August 12, 2026, succeeding Grok 4.5. Long-context billing is a cliff, not a ramp: at 200K tokens and above the whole request is charged at $4/$12. DeepSWE 65.9%, CursorBench 3.2 70.8%, FrontierCode 1.1 Extended 61.3%, Terminal-Bench 3.0 26.5%, APEX-Agents 57.5%.
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.
Released July 8, 2026 on the 1.5T-parameter V9 base. Pricing verified on docs.x.ai: $2/$6 under 200K prompt tokens, $4/$12 above. Full access initially gated to SuperGrok Heavy; staged rollout to SuperGrok $30 tier. EU availability lagged launch.
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Grok 4.6 wins on more of the categories we score — coding, reasoning, research — so it is the better default of the two. Grok 4.5 is the better pick when your work is mostly fast and token-efficient coding agents. Neither is universally "better": Grok 4.6 is aimed at long-running agents and multi-step codebase work, Grok 4.5 at fast and token-efficient coding agents.
Both models are similarly priced at $2/1M input tokens. The decision should come down to capability, not cost.
Both Grok 4.6 and Grok 4.5 have the same 500K context window.
Grok 4.5 is better for coding with a score of 94 vs Grok 4.6's 86 (out of 100). Claude Fable 5 is the overall coding leader in this directory at 100/100.
Both Grok 4.6 and Grok 4.5 have similar speed profiles — rated fast. Neither will be the bottleneck if latency is your deciding factor.
No published SWE-bench Verified or SWE-bench Pro figure, so it cannot be compared directly on the standard coding leaderboard. GPT-5.6 Sol Max beats it on DeepSWE v1.1 and Terminal-Bench 3.0. Prompts of 200K tokens or more are billed at $4/$12 across the entire request, not just the overage. Avoid it if you need a published SWE-bench score to justify the pick, or your prompts routinely cross 200K tokens where the price doubles. That is the main case for looking at Grok 4.5 instead.
Raw ceiling trails the frontier: 64.7% SWE-bench Pro vs Opus 4.8's 69.2%, with a higher reported hallucination rate. 500K context is half the frontier norm, and rates double at ≥200K prompt tokens. Avoid it if you need the highest solve rate per attempt or verified low hallucination — Claude Opus 5 is the safer premium pick. Against Grok 4.6 specifically, the gap shows up most on coding (86 vs 94).
Take a moderate workload of 10M input and 2M output tokens a month. Grok 4.6 runs $32.00 (at $2/1M in and $6/1M out); Grok 4.5 runs $32.00 (at $2/1M in and $6/1M out). The gap is small enough that price should not decide this one. Output tokens dominate the bill on both, so prompt length matters far less than response length.
Yes, and for most teams that beats picking one. A common split is Grok 4.6 for long-running agents and multi-step codebase work, with Grok 4.5 handling fast and token-efficient coding agents. Since Grok 4.6 is both the stronger and the cheaper option here, a split mainly makes sense if Grok 4.5 covers a capability you specifically need.