Grok 3 Max vs o4 Vision: which model should you choose?
We compared Grok 3 Max and o4 Vision on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Grok 3 Max has the stronger average benchmark score; o4 Vision is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
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
o4 Vision
o4 Vision is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $17.01 per million input tokens and $90.05 per million output tokens, and averages 84.5 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $17.01 / 1M
- Output
- $90.05 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 84.5
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Grok 3 Max | o4 Vision | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $17.66 | $17.01 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $89.12 | $90.05 | A |
| Context window | 2,000,000 | 200,000 | A |
| Max output | 32,768 | 4,096 | A |
| Average score | 85.9 | 84.5 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1475.8 | 1473.2 | A |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Grok 3 Max wins 9, o4 Vision wins 2, and 1 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Grok 3 Max | o4 Vision | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 87.3 | 84.2 | 3.1 | Grok 3 Max |
| GPQA Diamond | 80.9 | 80.9 | 0.0 | Tie |
| SWE-bench Verified | 73.6 | 75.6 | 2.0 | o4 Vision |
| HumanEval | 91.9 | 88.9 | 3.0 | Grok 3 Max |
| MATH-500 | 91.9 | 91.7 | 0.2 | Grok 3 Max |
| AIME 2025 | 86.6 | 80.4 | 6.2 | Grok 3 Max |
| LiveCodeBench | 79.7 | 81.3 | 1.6 | o4 Vision |
| IFEval | 92.6 | 89.1 | 3.5 | Grok 3 Max |
| TruthfulQA | 86.7 | 85.3 | 1.4 | Grok 3 Max |
| HellaSwag | 91.8 | 91.2 | 0.6 | Grok 3 Max |
| MMMU | 82.3 | 80.7 | 1.6 | Grok 3 Max |
| Arena Elo | 1475.8 | 1473.2 | 2.6 | Grok 3 Max |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Grok 3 Max costs about $35.53 per million tokens and o4 Vision costs about $35.27. o4 Vision is roughly 1% 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 200,000 for o4 Vision. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Grok 3 Max wins 9, o4 Vision wins 2, and 1 are tied. On the index average, Grok 3 Max leads o4 Vision by 1.4 points (85.9 versus 84.5).
The price picture favours o4 Vision. 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 o4 Vision for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
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.
Choose o4 Vision if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
FAQ
Is Grok 3 Max better than o4 Vision?
On the index average, Grok 3 Max leads o4 Vision by 1.4 points (85.9 versus 84.5). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Grok 3 Max wins 9 benchmarks, o4 Vision wins 2.
Which is cheaper, Grok 3 Max or o4 Vision?
o4 Vision is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $35.27 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. o4 Vision has 200,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Grok 3 Max is proprietary; o4 Vision is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Grok 3 Max for quality-sensitive work and o4 Vision for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.