Grok 4.5 Review: Pricing, Performance, and How It Compares to Claude and GPT
Grok 4.5 is xAI's coding-focused AI model, released July 8, 2026. It's built into Cursor (all plans) and the xAI API, priced at $2/$6 per million input/output tokens. For everyday consumer use via grok.com or X, full Grok 4.5 access currently requires the SuperGrok Heavy plan ($300/month, discounted to $99/month for three months).
xAI's coding-focused model, built after acquiring Cursor and priced well below Claude and GPT. Here's how it performs and where it actually fits.
Grok 4.5 Review: Pricing, Performance, and How It Compares to Claude and GPT
Grok 4.5 is xAI's coding-focused model, first released on July 8, 2026 as the company's first launch since going public and acquiring the AI coding editor Cursor — aimed squarely at developers rather than casual chatbot users.
Update (August 2026): Grok 4.6 Has Launched
Just over a month after Grok 4.5 shipped, xAI released Grok 4.6 on August 12, 2026, extending the same coding-and-agent focus with a longer supplemental training run, a new "xhigh" reasoning tier for harder problems, and the ability to stream its reasoning summaries as it works -- something Grok 4.5 doesn't expose.
Headline pricing stayed the same at $2 per million input tokens and $6 per million output tokens for prompts under 200K tokens (crossing that line bills the whole request at $4/$12, same as before). The one quiet change: cached-input pricing rose from $0.30 to $0.50 per million tokens. On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, Grok 4.6 scored 61 -- five points above Grok 4.5 -- though it used roughly 47% more output tokens to get there, pushing the real cost of a standard task from $0.36 to $0.84, more than double.
In short: Grok 4.6 is measurably smarter but meaningfully more expensive to run at scale. Everything below about Grok 4.5's pricing, performance, and access still applies if you're on that model -- the comparison is worth knowing before you decide whether to upgrade.
What Grok 4.5 Actually Is
Unlike earlier Grok releases built as general-purpose chat assistants, Grok 4.5 was designed from the ground up for coding, agentic tasks, and knowledge work. xAI trained it using real developer session data pulled from Cursor, which the company acquired earlier in 2026 — meaning the model learned from how people actually write and debug code in a live editor, not just from scraped code repositories.
Elon Musk described it as an "Opus-class" model, positioning it as a direct rival to Anthropic's higher-end coding models, but with a specific emphasis on speed and cost rather than raw benchmark supremacy.
How It Performs
On independent benchmarking, Grok 4.5 lands in a solid but not top-tier position — it ranks fourth on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, ahead of every Gemini model and open-weight competitor, though behind Anthropic's top coding model and OpenAI's GPT-5.5 on several engineering benchmarks. Where it does stand out is efficiency: xAI reports it uses roughly four times fewer output tokens than Claude's Opus 4.8 to solve the same engineering tasks, and it leads on at least one real-world benchmark measuring sustained, multi-step coding work.
Speed and cost
Grok 4.5 runs at around 80 tokens per second, with xAI signaling that a custom inference stack in development could roughly double that speed without changing the underlying model.
Pricing: Where It Gets Interesting
This is the part most developers actually care about.
| Model | Input (per 1M tokens) | Output (per 1M tokens) |
|---|---|---|
| Grok 4.5 | $2 | $6 |
| Claude Opus 4.8 | $5 | $25 |
| GPT-5.5 (Sol, top tier) | $5 | $30 |
| GPT-5.5 (Luna, budget tier) | $1 | $6 |
At those rates, Grok 4.5 undercuts Claude's flagship coding model by more than 60% on output cost, while staying competitive with OpenAI's cheaper tier — a meaningful difference for teams running high-volume agentic workflows where token costs add up fast.
Where to Access Grok 4.5
Grok 4.5 is available as the default model in Grok Build, inside Cursor on all plans, and through the xAI API console.
SuperGrok: Consumer Access and Pricing
The API pricing above is for developers building with Grok 4.5 directly. For everyday use through grok.com or the X app, access runs through xAI's consumer subscription tiers instead:
- Free -- limited access to Grok models
- SuperGrok Lite ($10/month) -- entry-level paid tier with higher limits
- SuperGrok (~$30/month) -- raises usage limits and unlocks DeepSearch and Big Brain mode
- SuperGrok Heavy ($300/month, discounted to $99/month for the first three months) -- the only consumer plan with confirmed full Grok 4.5 access as of late July 2026
xAI also offers Grok access bundled through X: X Premium ($8/month) and X Premium+ ($40/month). If your goal is specifically to use Grok 4.5 itself rather than earlier Grok models, SuperGrok Heavy is currently the tier that guarantees it outside of Cursor and the API.
Who Should Use Grok 4.5
If your work leans heavily on agentic coding — long, multi-step tasks where an AI has to plan, write, test, and fix code across several rounds — Grok 4.5 is a legitimate option to test alongside Claude and GPT-based tools, particularly if cost per task is a real constraint. It's not the outright top performer on every benchmark, but the combination of speed, price, and native Cursor integration makes it worth a trial run.
Frequently Asked Questions
When was Grok 4.5 released?
Grok 4.5 launched on July 8, 2026 — xAI's first model release since going public and acquiring Cursor.
What is SuperGrok, and do I need it to use Grok 4.5?
SuperGrok is xAI's consumer subscription line, separate from the API pricing above. As of late July 2026, SuperGrok Heavy ($300/month) is the only consumer tier with confirmed full Grok 4.5 access -- lower tiers (Free, SuperGrok Lite at $10, and SuperGrok at ~$30) may still be running earlier Grok models. Developers can skip this entirely and use Grok 4.5 through Cursor or the xAI API instead.
Is Grok 4.5 better than Claude for coding?
It depends on the task. Independent benchmarks show Anthropic's top coding model still leads on most engineering tests, but Grok 4.5 is significantly cheaper and more token-efficient, and it wins on at least one real-world sustained-coding benchmark.
Can I use Grok 4.5 in Cursor?
Yes — it's available in Cursor on all plans, alongside xAI's own Grok Build tool.
Has Grok 4.6 replaced Grok 4.5?
Not exactly -- Grok 4.6 launched August 12, 2026 as a newer, more capable model at the same headline price, but Grok 4.5 remains available. If cost per task matters more than squeezing out the last few points of benchmark performance, Grok 4.5 is still a reasonable pick; Grok 4.6 is the better choice when you need the extra capability and can absorb the higher effective cost.
Was Grok 4.5 available in the EU at launch?
Not immediately — xAI rolled it out first in Grok Build, Cursor, and the API console, with EU availability following in mid-July 2026, about a week after the initial launch.
Is Grok 4.5 a general chatbot or a coding-specific tool?
It's built and trained primarily for coding, agentic tasks, and knowledge work, though it can still handle general questions like other Grok models.
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