Head-to-head · frontier vs frontier

Gemini 3 Flash Pro vs Grok 3 Max: which model should you choose?

We compared Gemini 3 Flash Pro and Grok 3 Max on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Grok 3 Max has the stronger average benchmark score; Gemini 3 Flash Pro is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.

Google DeepMind

Gemini 3 Flash Pro

Gemini 3 Flash Pro is a frontier model from Google DeepMind. It offers a 400,000-token context window, costs $17.71 per million input tokens and $86.50 per million output tokens, and averages 84.8 across the index's benchmark suite.

Input
$17.71 / 1M
Output
$86.50 / 1M
Context
400,000
Avg score
84.8
Open weights
No
Full Gemini 3 Flash Pro page
xAI

Grok 3 Max

Grok 3 Max is a frontier model from xAI. It offers a 2,000,000-token context window, costs $17.66 per million input tokens and $89.12 per million output tokens, and averages 85.9 across the index's benchmark suite.

Input
$17.66 / 1M
Output
$89.12 / 1M
Context
2,000,000
Avg score
85.9
Open weights
No
Full Grok 3 Max page

Specification comparison

SpecGemini 3 Flash ProGrok 3 MaxEdge
Input price / 1M$17.71$17.66B
Output price / 1M$86.50$89.12A
Context window400,0002,000,000B
Max output4,09632,768B
Average score84.885.9B
Arena Elo1469.21475.8B
Open weightsNoNoTie

Benchmark comparison

Gemini 3 Flash Pro wins 3, Grok 3 Max wins 9, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash ProGrok 3 MaxGapWinner
MMLU-Pro87.087.30.3Grok 3 Max
GPQA Diamond77.780.93.2Grok 3 Max
SWE-bench Verified73.373.60.3Grok 3 Max
HumanEval89.991.92.0Grok 3 Max
MATH-50091.891.90.1Grok 3 Max
AIME 202579.986.66.7Grok 3 Max
LiveCodeBench80.279.70.5Gemini 3 Flash Pro
IFEval92.892.60.2Gemini 3 Flash Pro
TruthfulQA86.286.70.5Grok 3 Max
HellaSwag90.691.81.2Grok 3 Max
MMMU83.082.30.7Gemini 3 Flash Pro
Arena Elo1469.21475.86.6Grok 3 Max

Price analysis

On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Gemini 3 Flash Pro costs about $34.91 per million tokens and Grok 3 Max costs about $35.53. Gemini 3 Flash Pro is roughly 2% cheaper than Grok 3 Max. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.

Grok 3 Max has the larger context window at 2,000,000 tokens, compared with 400,000 for Gemini 3 Flash Pro. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.

Verdict

Across 12 shared benchmarks, Gemini 3 Flash Pro wins 3, Grok 3 Max wins 9, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Grok 3 Max leads Gemini 3 Flash Pro by 1.1 points (85.9 versus 84.8).

The price picture favours Gemini 3 Flash Pro. The context picture favours Grok 3 Max. Those two dimensions often matter more than a few benchmark points once a model is good enough for the task.

If you need a single default, start with Grok 3 Max for quality-sensitive work and Gemini 3 Flash Pro for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.

Choose Gemini 3 Flash Pro if

  • Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.

Choose Grok 3 Max if

  • You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
  • You need the larger 2,000,000-token context window.
  • You need the larger 32,768-token output limit.

FAQ

Is Gemini 3 Flash Pro better than Grok 3 Max?

On the index average, Grok 3 Max leads Gemini 3 Flash Pro by 1.1 points (85.9 versus 84.8). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Gemini 3 Flash Pro wins 3 benchmarks, Grok 3 Max wins 9.

Which is cheaper, Gemini 3 Flash Pro or Grok 3 Max?

Gemini 3 Flash Pro is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $34.91 per million tokens, versus $35.53 for Grok 3 Max.

Which has the larger context window?

Grok 3 Max has the larger context window at 2,000,000 tokens. Gemini 3 Flash Pro has 400,000 tokens.

Are these models open weights?

Gemini 3 Flash Pro is proprietary; Grok 3 Max is proprietary.

Which should I choose for production?

If you need a single default, start with Grok 3 Max for quality-sensitive work and Gemini 3 Flash Pro for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.

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