Grok 4 just revealed a $300 a month plan — here's what it includes

7 hours ago 1
Grok chatbot next to a photo of Elon Musk.
(Image credit: Unite.AI/GettyImages)

The AI market is non-stop. As competitors scramble to be the top dog, Elon Musk’s xAI is the latest to make a big move, launching the latest version of its Grok chatbot.

An entire hour after the livestream was meant to kick off, Elon Musk and a few members of the xAI team took to the stage, revealing Grok 4. It’s better at coding, more intelligent, and more capable at taking on large amounts of information.

Unfortunately for the Grok team, this update has been pretty drastically overshadowed by other news. Just days before, xAI was facing backlash over racist and antisemitic responses from Grok’s earlier versions, and its support for conspiracy theories.

Following that, the company’s CEO Linda Yaccarino announced she was stepping down from her role.

With all of this, Grok 4 is a chance for the company to show that it is still just as competitive in the world of AI, despite fierce competition. But, as it announced reams of improvements and exciting changes, there is one new issue that came from the launch.

The rise of expensive AI plans

Grok logo on a phone handset on a keyboard

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Okay, it’s not so much an issue, more of a concern. xAI is now the owner of the most expensive AI chatbot subscription plan, with a whopping $300 a month price tag.

That’s not to say its competitors aren’t jacking up the prices. Perplexity, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and others now all offer a higher-performance plan with a big price tag. They all, however, went $100 lower with a $200 a month price tag.

Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips.

We’ve already made a point of questioning these prices. For the average person, they are pretty steep and signal a slow descent into AI priority for those with the cash to splash.

Features are locked behind these paywalls, and these so-called power users get better speeds and priority in queues. But Musk and his team have pushed the idea that this plan specifically is actually worth all that money. So is that true?

Super Grok 4 Heavy

Grok live stream

In their own tests, Grok 4 outperformed all competitors (Image credit: Grok live stream)

xAI has claimed that this is the world’s most powerful AI model, outperforming any and all competitors. That’s a big claim, so what can it actually do?

Like the other versions of Grok 4, this is still a chatbot in the traditional sense. However, it's got a lot more tricks up its sleeve.

It includes a multi-agent version of Grok, which runs multiple reasoning agents in parallel, comparing their outputs to boost accuracy and depth. In other words, whenever you ask the model a question, multiple agents (or versions of the chatbot) attempt to tackle the problem from a variety of angles.

A final version reviews all of the responses, selecting the best one or blending them together. It’s a bit like asking a team of experts a question, picking out the best bits of advice from each of them.

This is a big step up from what we’ve seen from the likes of ChatGPT and Gemini, which, even when using deep research (where the model takes more time and effort on each prompt), it isn’t analyzing your queries in anywhere near as much depth.

YouTuber Ray Fernando took the dive and bought the $300 plan, testing its performance and comparing it to OpenAI’s nearest plan.

He found its performance was impressive, pumping out long, detailed information about how to make money in niche areas, stocks to invest in, and freelance opportunities.

The supposed benefit of Grok is its level of expertise, understanding any topic from a variety of angles at quick speeds.

Overall thoughts

Grok 4 Super Heavy is undoubtedly impressive and right now, could well be the best performing AI tool out there. So, obviously you should invest in it, right? For most people, no.

A tiny minority of people will get the full benefits needed for this plan. It is heavily targeted at coders, business owners and massive power users of AI. The same can be said for any of the $200-a-month plans.

They are impressive tools with prices to match. But, so are the cheaper plans. If you’re looking to upgrade to a paid AI plan, try out one of the cheaper options before you make the staggering jump to $300 a month.

More from Tom's Guide

Arrow

Back to Laptops

Arrow

Show more

Alex is the AI editor at TomsGuide. Dialed into all things artificial intelligence in the world right now, he knows the best chatbots, the weirdest AI image generators, and the ins and outs of one of tech’s biggest topics.

Before joining the Tom’s Guide team, Alex worked for the brands TechRadar and BBC Science Focus.

He was highly commended in the Specialist Writer category at the BSME's 2023 and was part of a team to win best podcast at the BSME's 2025.

In his time as a journalist, he has covered the latest in AI and robotics, broadband deals, the potential for alien life, the science of being slapped, and just about everything in between.

When he’s not trying to wrap his head around the latest AI whitepaper, Alex pretends to be a capable runner, cook, and climber.

Read Entire Article