Is Grok free? What's actually included in 2026

One naming note before the details: the company behind Grok isn't called xAI anymore. SpaceX acquired xAI on 2 February 2026 in an all-stock deal reported at a combined $1.25 trillion valuation, and on 6 July 2026 the merged company rebranded as SpaceXAI. Grok itself, the chatbot, the app, SuperGrok, and the developer API, kept its name through the change; only the parent company's identity shifted. You'll still see "xAI" in older docs and this article uses it interchangeably with SpaceXAI for anything published before the rebrand.

What's actually free right now

• Text chat, on grok.com, the X app, or the standalone Grok app for iOS and Android. You don't need the X app specifically anymore, but you do still need X login credentials to sign in.
• An older or lighter model, not the current flagship. xAI released Grok 4.6 on 12 August 2026 as a paid-tier model; free-tier chat runs on a different, unspecified build. Which exact version, competing guides disagree (some say Grok 3, others a "Grok 4 Mini class" model), and xAI hasn't published a definitive answer, so treat any article that states an exact free-tier model version with confidence as guessing.
• No image generation. Grok Imagine was restricted to paid subscribers on 9 January 2026 following reporting on deepfake misuse, then removed from the free tier entirely on 19 March 2026. It has not returned.
• No video generation, same restriction, same timeline.
• Some DeepSearch (web-connected) capability, though third-party trackers report it's more limited on free accounts than a specific published cap confirms.

Free tier limits are unpublished, and separate from the paid quota system

In June 2026, xAI restructured usage limits, but the change applies to paid subscribers, not the free tier. xAI's own developer FAQ is explicit about the split: "Rolling out in June 2026, Grok will now use a simpler, more flexible system for paid users," replacing separate per-product daily limits (Chat, Imagine, Voice, Build) with one shared weekly usage pool, tracked as a percentage. The same page then states free-tier access is unaffected by that change: "You will still have access to Grok's free tier limits on Chat and Voice (these are separate from your weekly usage limit and resets on their own schedule)."

What that means in practice: if you're on a paid plan, your Chat, Imagine, Voice, and Build usage now draws from one combined weekly pool instead of four separate daily counters. One independent tracker estimated rough per-action costs against that paid pool, a 480p video around 2%, a higher-quality image around 4%, a quick image around 1%, and a short chat exchange around 1%, though that's a third-party estimate, not an xAI-published figure. If you're on the free tier, none of that applies to you directly: your Chat and Voice access runs on its own separate, still-unpublished limit that xAI says resets on its own schedule, without a published number for how large that limit is or exactly when it refills.

"My quota is stuck at 100%": a real, unresolved complaint on free accounts

A recurring complaint on the free tier, independent of the paid-tier pool change above, is that the usage meter appears to lock at its ceiling and doesn't reset on schedule, sometimes clearing only after a manual sign-out and sign-in. Other reports describe unexplained jumps in usage with no visible breakdown of what consumed it, and upsell prompts to a paid tier appearing where a countdown to reset would be more useful. xAI has not issued a public statement confirming this as a bug versus intended behavior, and the ambiguity is itself part of the complaint: without a published breakdown of the free tier's actual limit or reset timing, users can't tell the difference between a metering bug and the system working as designed. If your Grok access seems to have vanished without warning, this pattern, not a regional block or account issue, is the more likely explanation as of this writing.

Grok Bot is not the same product

If you've seen "Grok Bot" priced at $200/month and wondered whether that's what standard free-tier Grok turns into, it isn't. Grok Bot is a separate SpaceXAI product, a multi-agent coding and automation platform available through Cursor's $200/month Ultra plan and reportedly also bundled with SuperGrok Heavy, unrelated to the consumer chat app at grok.com or the X-integrated Grok most people mean when they ask if Grok is free. The two share underlying models but are distinct products with distinct pricing; don't let a search result about Grok Bot's price convince you consumer Grok costs the same.

Current pricing, if you outgrow free

Tier                     Price              What it adds
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Free                     $0                 Chat on an older model, no image/video,
                                             unpublished Chat/Voice limits, X login required

SuperGrok Lite           $10/mo             Entry standalone tier, higher usage caps

SuperGrok                $30/mo             Current flagship model access, DeepSearch,
                                             "Big Brain" extended reasoning, larger context

SuperGrok Plus           ~$100/mo           Reported mid-2026 addition between SuperGrok
                                             and Heavy; unofficial, not confirmed on
                                             xAI's own pricing page as of this writing

SuperGrok Heavy          $300/mo            Multi-agent "Heavy" mode (was discounted to
                                             $99/mo for the first 3 months in some launches)

X Premium (Basic)        $8/mo              Grok bundled into standard X subscription

X Premium+               $40/mo, or         Ad-free X plus higher Grok throughput
                          $395/yr (~$33/mo)

Enterprise/Business      Not published      Contact-sales tier via x.ai/api

Source: cross-referenced from xAI's developer documentation and current third-
party pricing trackers, since x.ai's own pricing page returned an access error
to automated verification during this research. Verify current prices directly
on x.ai/pricing before subscribing, and treat the SuperGrok Plus figure as
unconfirmed until it appears on xAI's own page.

"Is Grok 4 free?" has a 2025 answer people keep applying to 2026

This search keeps surfacing because it's technically true and badly out of date. xAI made Grok 4 free to all users for a limited time on 10 August 2025, with a promotional cap of 5 prompts every 12 hours. That was over a year ago, and Grok has since moved on to newer flagship releases, Grok 4.5, then Grok 4.6 in August 2026, both gated to paid tiers. If you're reading an article citing "Grok 4 is now free" as current news, it's describing a 2025 promotion, not today's free tier, which runs an older model entirely.

Getting the most out of the free tier

• Keep prompts short and specific. xAI hasn't published exactly how the free tier's Chat limit is calculated, but a long, sprawling multi-part question is a reasonable bet to count against you faster than the same information split into a couple of focused exchanges.
• Use grok.com or the app directly, not a third-party wrapper. Services like zerotwo.ai reselling access to Grok models for a flat monthly fee are layering their own markup on top of xAI's API pricing; they aren't a way around the free tier's limits, just a differently priced alternative to SuperGrok.
• Sign out and back in if your quota looks stuck at 100%. Not a guaranteed fix, but it's the workaround multiple users report actually clearing the meter, ahead of any official acknowledgment from xAI.
• Don't rely on free Grok for image or video work at all. Rather than waiting for restrictions to loosen, treat that gap as permanent for planning purposes; nothing in xAI's public roadmap suggests free image or video generation is returning.

How Grok's free tier compares to ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude

Every major chatbot rations its free tier somehow, but the shape of the rationing differs. ChatGPT and Perplexity publish exact free-tier limits you can count against. Gemini moved to the same kind of compute-based, unpublished quota Grok now uses, back in May 2026. Claude's free tier caps on message count within a rolling window without publishing an exact number either. Grok stands out mainly for what's missing rather than what's limited: unlike ChatGPT and Gemini, whose free tiers both retain some image generation, Grok's free tier has none at all as of March 2026. If image generation specifically is what you're after, Grok's free plan currently isn't a contender regardless of message quota; the four-way flagship comparison covers the paid tiers of all four side by side if that's what you're actually deciding between.

People also ask

Do I need an X (Twitter) account to use Grok for free?

Yes. You need X login credentials even to use the standalone Grok app or grok.com directly; you don't need the X app itself installed, but the account requirement hasn't gone away.

Is Grok's free tier the same model as the paid version?

No. The current flagship, Grok 4.6, released August 2026, is paid-only. Free-tier chat runs an older or lighter model that xAI hasn't specified publicly; competing sources disagree on exactly which one, so treat any confident claim about the specific free model version as unverified.

Can I generate images or videos with Grok for free?

No. Grok Imagine was restricted to paid subscribers on 9 January 2026 and removed from the free tier entirely on 19 March 2026. Image and video generation now require a paid SuperGrok plan or X Premium.

Why does my free Grok usage say I'm at 100% and won't reset?

This is a known, unresolved complaint on free accounts. Free-tier Chat and Voice limits are unpublished and reset on their own schedule, separate from the shared weekly pool xAI introduced for paid subscribers in June 2026. xAI hasn't confirmed whether the stuck meter is a display bug or intended behavior; some users report it clears after signing out and back in.

Is Grok Bot the same as free Grok chat?

No. Grok Bot is a separate multi-agent product available through Cursor's $200/month Ultra plan (and reportedly SuperGrok Heavy), aimed at coding and automation. It shares underlying models with consumer Grok but is a distinct product with distinct pricing.

Is xAI still xAI, or is it called something else now?

SpaceX acquired xAI on 2 February 2026, and the merged company rebranded as SpaceXAI on 6 July 2026. The Grok product line kept its branding throughout; the name change affects the parent company, not what you sign up for.