Grok 3 vs Grok 4: practical differences, performance, and what changes for users in 2025
- Graziano Stefanelli
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
The leap from Grok 3 to Grok 4 marks a turning point for the xAI platform.
From the first “reasoning-first” model designed for X Premium+ to the new SuperGrok generation, the differences between Grok 3 and Grok 4 impact tools, power, subscriptions, and use cases.
The evolution of Grok in 2025 reflects growing expectations: Grok 3 was the reference model for X Premium+ and SuperGrok users until summer, offering generous context and fast responses, but with limits on images and stability above half a million tokens.Grok 4, released in July, targets a professional and business audience: it introduces mature multimodality, more advanced native tools, autonomous web search, and greater consistency even on long documents or complex data sets.
Release and accessibility: Grok 3 is still mainstream, Grok 4 is premium.
Access to the two models marks a clear divergence in user targets, pricing, and access channels: Grok 3 continues to be included in X Premium+ and SuperGrok plans, making it the default model for most consumer and prosumer users of the platform, with affordable pricing and generous messaging quotas.
Grok 4, on the other hand, raises the bar both in terms of access threshold and user experience: it is available only starting from the SuperGrok plan ($30/month), aimed at users seeking superior performance, advanced multimodal features, and enterprise-grade native tools. For businesses and power-users, the new SuperGrok Heavy level ($300/month) gives access to Grok 4 Heavy, a version enhanced both in parameters and API/tool quotas, already being trialed by major tech and fintech players.While Grok 3 is also in API beta, Grok 4 offers more stable APIs and higher usage quotas. The pricing difference, combined with more advanced tools and priority in compute queues, means the user experience is more stable and powerful with Grok 4.
Model | Release | Basic access | Advanced access | API availability |
Grok 3 | Feb 2025 | X Premium+ (~$16/month), SuperGrok ($30/month) | — | Limited beta |
Grok 4 | Jul 2025 | SuperGrok ($30/month) | SuperGrok Heavy ($300/month) | Available |
So... in summary: Grok 3 is xAI’s “democratic” model, included in consumer packages, while Grok 4 is designed for those who want (or need) a superior platform for professional and business use.
Input, output, and tools: Grok 4 fully integrates multimodality and advanced agentic tools.
In terms of practical capabilities, Grok 3 was designed mainly as a text-based model and can only partially handle images, typically via limited previews and with variable quality. Grok 4 makes a generational leap, making visual input and support for PDFs, screenshots, charts, and tables a stable and native part of the experience.
In practice, this means that Grok 4 can process and analyze even complex images, including scanned documents and presentations, activating OCR and automatic recognition of visual elements. This feature is now essential in workflows involving contracts, Excel tables, invoices, charts, and datasheets.On the agentic tools front, both models integrate tools like Code Interpreter and X-Search (internal search engine), but Grok 4 also introduces a native web browser and the ability to browse and process web pages directly in session, similar to ChatGPT Advanced and Gemini Ultra.
Function | Grok 3 | Grok 4 |
Input | Text (images in limited preview) | Text + images (native) |
Output | Text | Text |
Integrated tools | Code Interpreter, X-Search | Code Interpreter, X-Search, Web Search |
Real-time search | DeepSearch | Enhanced DeepSearch, web search |
Operational detail: Grok 4 now allows analysis of images, PDFs, and visual files in a stable and integrated way, while Grok 3 remains oriented toward textual tasks and quick search on written data.
Context window and file handling: Grok 3 can process more text, Grok 4 is more consistent and visual.
The difference in “context window” is notable and often central for users working with large textual archives or structured data flows: Grok 3, especially in the “mini Reasoning (high)” mode, can keep up to 1 million tokens in memory, allowing analysis or synthesis of entire books, technical PDFs, and text databases. However, response consistency tends to drop above 500k tokens, and practical limits vary depending on system load.
Grok 4 lowers the maximum context to 256k tokens, still higher than most mainstream LLMs, but compensates with significantly greater stability and full visual support: every file, image, or document is analyzed with OCR, table segmentation, and automatic extraction tools.As for upload, Grok 3 allows up to 40 files per chat (200 MB total), while Grok 4 goes up to 80 files (512 MB) and adapts better to workflows that require multiple attachments, presentations, compressed archives, or multi-format documents.
Model | Max context window | File upload | Operational notes |
Grok 3 | 1M tokens* | 200 MB / 40 files | Consistency drops above 500k tokens, image preview only for testers |
Grok 4 | 256k tokens | 512 MB / 80 files | Native OCR, full support for images and PDFs, stable context |
Practical point: if your work is mostly pure text and you need to process extremely long documents, Grok 3 may be preferable; for those who deal with many different files and need consistency even on visual content, Grok 4 offers a superior experience.
Performance and benchmarks: Grok 4 dominates in reasoning and coding tests, but requires a higher investment.
Independent benchmarks and community trials show that Grok 4 has raised the bar compared to its predecessor: in MMLU-Pro tests (knowledge and reasoning), GPQA (scientific question answering), and SWE-Bench (coding), Grok 4 consistently achieves higher results, showing greater accuracy in both reasoning and code execution as well as scientific content understanding.
Time to first token (TTFT) has improved, thanks also to a larger cloud infrastructure (200,000 GPUs), and performance stability remains constant even during high loads, as highlighted in reports from early enterprise users.Grok 3, while still fast and competitive in day-to-day use, shows some variability both in context retention and in answer quality on advanced tasks and complex code generation.
Benchmark (Jul 2025) | Grok 3 | Grok 4 |
MMLU-Pro | 83% | 87% |
GPQA | 84% | 88% |
SWE-Bench (coding) | 72%* | 75% |
Latency TTFT | 0.59 s | 0.5 s |
*Value refers to the “Think” variant; consumer models usually score between 65% and 68%.
Technical summary: Grok 4 is now the reference for those seeking advanced reasoning, code generation, and consistency on large documents, but the quality leap requires a higher entry cost and more attention to API or token resource management.
Pricing and subscriptions: Grok 4 requires a higher budget, but also grants access to premium features.
Pricing is one of the most evident variables in the comparison between the two models: Grok 3 remains included in X Premium+ packages (about $16/month) and in the SuperGrok plan at $30/month, guaranteeing access to main tools and a message quota suitable even for intensive use.
For Grok 4, however, at least SuperGrok ($30/month) is required, and those seeking maximum power, higher API quota, and priority access to updates must opt for SuperGrok Heavy ($300/month), clearly aimed at companies, AI startups, financial analysts, and other high-volume users.Note that Grok 4 also offers more stable APIs and on-demand consumption ($3/million input tokens), while the Heavy plan includes higher SLAs and access to versions of the model with more parameters.
Plan | Price | Included models | Context window | Notes |
X Premium+ | ~$16/month | Grok 3 | 128–200k | Daily message quota, ideal for individuals and creators |
SuperGrok | $30/month | Grok 3 + Grok 4 | up to 256k | Pay-as-you-go API, advanced tools, OCR |
SuperGrok Heavy | $300/month | Grok 4 Heavy | 256k | Higher API and tool quota, priority on updates and support |
Practical note: The price jump corresponds to a clear increase in capability, but should be weighed against real workflow, compliance, and productivity needs.
Limits, stability, and use cases: the choice between Grok 3 and Grok 4 depends on workflow, context, and ambition.
The user experience with the two models varies greatly depending on usage intensity, data types handled, and the need for advanced features: Grok 3 remains the perfect choice for those working mainly with text, chat, and Q&A on even very long documents, while Grok 4 is now the standard for those managing images, complex PDFs, automation, and web search.
Grok 3: ideal for users who want a fast AI platform, affordable, with a large memory window and good integration into X and SuperGrok workflows. It remains competitive for “long” chats, brainstorming, drafting, and text search.
Grok 4: essential for professionals, companies, and developers who need advanced document analysis, OCR, tables, charts, and automation with integrated tools. Greater consistency, stability in responses, and a growing set of features tailored to data-driven workflows and advanced automation.
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