RETIRED131K CONTEXTARCHIVE PRICEREDIRECTS TO GROK-4-3
Grok 3 API Pricing
Grok 3 is now an archive row: historical pricing was $3/M input, $0.75/M cached input, and $15/M output. xAI's current retirement guide lists grok-3 among slugs retired on May 15, 2026.
Input - per 1M tokens
$3.00/M
Historical Grok 3 archive
Output - per 1M tokens
$15.00/M
Archive beta price archive
Cached input
$0.75/M
Prompt cache discount
Effective - agentic blend
$2.26/M
92/8 split - 82% cache
§ 01 / TERMINAL
Run the numbers.
Calculator pre-loaded with Grok 3's archive rates. For live traffic after May 15, 2026, xAI says the retired slug redirects to Grok 4.3 and bills at Grok 4.3 pricing.
$ /mo
Workload split
Prompt cache hit rate
Tokens you can process
—
Words equivalent (English)
—
Effective rate
—
§ 02 / SCENARIOS
Real-world presets.
AGENT
Tool-calling agent
$0.212/task
LONG CONTEXT
Research pack synthesis
$0.381/pack
CHAT
Power-user chat
$0.165/turn
RAG
Knowledge base RAG
$0.353/answer
§ 03 / TAPE
Price history.
Input · $3/M
Output · $15/M
Cached · $0.75/M
FEB 17 Launched at $3/M input and $15/M outputMAY 18 Retirement verified; slug redirects to Grok 4.3 after May 15, 2026
§ 04 / TOKENIZER
Paste text. See tokens. See cost.
Estimate · grok-tokenizer-estimate · ≈3.85 chars/token Auto-counts as you type
This is a chars-per-token approximation, not a real tokenizer. Actual tokens vary by language, code density, and tool-call overhead — counts are typically ±10–20% off for English prose, more for code or non-Latin scripts. For exact billing, use the vendor's official tokenizer.
Characters —
Words —
Tokens (estimated) —
Cost as input · uncached —
Cost as output · uncached —
Cost as cached input —
| Model | Input /M | Output /M | Effective blended | Context | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grok 3 Current | $3.00 cache $0.75 | $15.00 | $2.26 archive 92/8 | 131K | Archive Grok 3 invoices |
| Grok 4.3 | $1.25 | $2.50 | $1.35 current replacement | 1M | Current Grok default |
| Gemini 2.5 Pro | $1.25 cache $0.13 | $10.00 | $1.10 Gemini Pro | 2M | Stable Google frontier |
| GPT-5.4 | $2.50 cache $0.25 | $15.00 | $1.80 OpenAI frontier | 1.05M | Affordable OpenAI frontier |
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 | $3.00 cache $0.30 | $15.00 | $1.92 Anthropic agent | 1M | Daily-driver Claude agents |
| DeepSeek V4 Pro | $0.43 cache $0.00 | $0.87 | $0.14 budget reasoning | 1M | Low-cost reasoning alternative |
Frequently asked.
Grok 3 pricing questions, with xAI token rates separated from workload assumptions.
Q · 01 What was Grok 3's API price? +
The archive snapshot keeps Grok 3 at
$3/M input, $0.75/M cached input, and $15/M output. Use these numbers for historical billing analysis.Q · 02 Is Grok 3 still available? +
xAI's current May 15, 2026 retirement guide lists
grok-3 among retired slugs. After the retirement time, requests redirect to grok-4.3 and are billed at Grok 4.3 rates.Q · 03 Does prompt caching apply? +
The archive row includes cached input at
$0.75/M. The effective blend assumes 82% cache hits; set cache to off in the calculator for fresh-input workloads.Q · 04 Why keep an archive page? +
Grok 3 had high search demand and appears in old invoices, benchmarks, and migration plans. The page is marked as retired so it stays useful without implying current endpoint availability.
Q · 05 What should replace Grok 3? +
Use
grok-4.3. xAI's live pricing page lists Grok 4.3 at $1.25/M input, $0.20/M cached input, and $2.50/M output.Q · 06 How accurate is the tokenizer estimate? +
The widget uses
4.875 characters per token as a planning estimate. Exact billing can vary with language, hidden reasoning, cached prompt boundaries, and tool usage.