Grok 4.5 API Pricing & Cost Calculator

Grok 4.5's $2/$6 pricing makes it the cheapest 'reasoning-tier' frontier model per output token. The shorter 500K context window is the catch - if you don't need 1M, the value is excellent.

Grok 4.5 is xAI's frontier reasoning model with a 500K-token context window. It sits in the same pricing tier as Claude Sonnet 5 and below the flagship Claude Opus 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol.

By TechCompare · Updated

Input tokens
100,000
50% cached
Output tokens
5,000
per request
Volume
100 / monthly
Standard API

Calculator

Cost Comparison

Based on 100,000 input tokens (50% cached), 5,000 output tokens, and 100 requests.

How this is calculated

Grok 4.5 is priced at $2.00 per million input tokens and $6.00 per million output tokens, with an 85% prompt caching discount ($0.30 per million cached reads). Its 500K context window is half of Claude's and Gemini's 1M, which is the main trade-off versus same-priced peers.

Verdict

Grok 4.5's $2/$6 pricing makes it the cheapest 'reasoning-tier' frontier model per output token. The shorter 500K context window is the catch - if you don't need 1M, the value is excellent.

More API Standalones scenarios

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Single-model claude-opus-4.8 cost estimate
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Frequently asked questions

How does Grok 4.5's caching compare to Claude's or Gemini's?
Grok 4.5 offers an 85% caching discount ($0.30 per million cached) vs the 90% Claude and Google offer. For highly cache-heavy workloads the 5-point gap adds up - Grok 4.5 is best for shorter, less-repetitive calls.