Grok

Our verdict

The cheapest way into a frontier assistant, and the only one that can read X. The catch is that you cannot find out what you are buying. Every paid tier is sold as a multiple of Plus, and Plus is never given a number, so "50x more usage" multiplies an unknown. Worth it if you already pay for X and the social features count toward the price; harder to justify as a pure AI purchase against tools that publish their limits.

Key features

  • Chat with step-by-step reasoning
  • Imagine for image and video generation in the same thread
  • Voice conversations
  • Grok Build, plus Cursor included on paid tiers
  • Live search across the web and X
  • Grok Bot, and Grokipedia as a separate reference product
  • Web, iOS and Android, with API access on paid plans

Strengths

  • The cheapest paid entry point of the major assistants at 8 dollars a month
  • Live search over X posts, which the other assistants cannot read
  • The usage pool refreshes weekly rather than monthly, so one heavy day does not cost you the rest of the month
  • You keep ownership of your inputs and outputs under the consumer terms

Limitations

  • Paid usage is published only as a multiple of Plus (4x, 15x, 50x) and Plus itself is never quantified, so the multiplier has no base to multiply
  • Free is described only as "Limited Chat requests" and "Limited agent requests", with no figure anywhere
  • The AI pool is shared with Cursor, so coding work and chat draw down the same balance
  • API access is included on paid plans but billed separately at model rates and does not draw on the pool
  • Third-party models inside Cursor are not included and are charged at API list price
  • AI tiers are bundled with X social features, so you cannot buy the AI alone
  • Prices exclude VAT and other taxes

Who should skip Grok

Anyone who needs to know their usage ceiling before paying, since no tier is quantified. Anyone who wants AI without the X subscription attached. And anyone planning to publish output commercially without first reading the attribution clause in section 4.

Pricing details

Checked on the official pricing page on . Prices change often, so confirm before you buy.

What the free plan includes

  • The pricing page lists the free tier as "Limited Chat requests" and "Limited agent requests", with usage marked only as "Limited". No number is given for either, on the pricing page or in the FAQ beside it. Posting, replying and following on X are included.

Worth knowing

Five consumer tiers: Free at 0, Plus at 8, Premium at 30, Super at 100 and Ultra at 200 dollars a month, all excluding tax. Teams and Enterprise are separate. What you cannot work out from the page is how much you actually get. Every tier includes what xAI calls a pool of AI usage shared across Grok and Cursor, covering Chat, Imagine, Voice and Bot, and the paid tiers are described purely as multiples of Plus: Premium is "4x more usage compared to Plus", Super "15x" and Ultra "50x". Plus itself is never quantified, so none of those multiples resolve to a number. The pool refreshes weekly, which is genuinely better than a monthly reset, and top-ups are available when it runs out. Two things sit outside the pool entirely: API usage, which paid plans include access to but which is "billed separately at standard model rates", and third-party models in Cursor, which are charged at API list price.

Commercial use

Allowed with conditions. The consumer terms say plainly that you keep what you put in and what comes out: "as between you and SpaceXSI, you retain your ownership rights to the User Content", where User Content covers both Input and Output. Two carve-outs are worth knowing. Output is defined to exclude "output from Grokipedia" and to exclude system metadata and logs. And the same section adds a condition the other assistants do not: "When using Output or SpaceXSI's name, logos, trademarks, or other brand elements, you are required to obtain our permission and attribute your generation of the Output to the Service, as detailed in our Brand Guidelines." Read strictly, that attaches a permission-and-attribution requirement to using Output at all; read loosely, it attaches only to the brand elements listed beside it. The sentence does not resolve itself and we are not going to resolve it for them, but if you intend to publish Grok output commercially it is the clause to raise with a lawyer. Separately, inputs carry a broad grant to the company: "irrevocable, perpetual, transferable, sublicensable, royalty-free, and worldwide", expressly including using them to "improve our products" and develop new features, and extending to any person's "image, likeness, voice, or other similar attributes" in what you upload. Governing law is Texas, with arbitration and a class action waiver.

Notable integrations

  • Cursor, included on paid tiers
  • Grok API, billed separately at model rates
  • Grok Bot
  • X

Alternatives to Grok

  • ChatGPT

    OpenAI's assistant, used by network and IT staff for config drafts, log analysis, scripting and explaining unfamiliar syntax.

  • Claude

    Anthropic's assistant, used for long technical documents, detailed config review and automation scripting.

  • Google Gemini

    Google's consumer AI assistant, sold through plans that bundle cloud storage and other Google subscriptions alongside the model itself.

  • Perplexity

    An answer engine that searches the live web and returns a written answer with inline citations, extended by a research agent and its own browser.