Head-to-head · frontier vs frontier

Grok 3 Pro vs o4 Vision: which model should you choose?

We compared Grok 3 Pro and o4 Vision on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. o4 Vision has the stronger average benchmark score; Grok 3 Pro is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.

xAI

Grok 3 Pro

Grok 3 Pro is a frontier model from xAI. It offers a 400,000-token context window, costs $16.61 per million input tokens and $73.49 per million output tokens, and averages 83.8 across the index's benchmark suite.

Input
$16.61 / 1M
Output
$73.49 / 1M
Context
400,000
Avg score
83.8
Open weights
No
Full Grok 3 Pro page
OpenAI

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
Full o4 Vision page

Specification comparison

SpecGrok 3 Proo4 VisionEdge
Input price / 1M$16.61$17.01A
Output price / 1M$73.49$90.05A
Context window400,000200,000A
Max output4,0964,096Tie
Average score83.884.5B
Arena Elo1448.41473.2B
Open weightsNoNoTie

Benchmark comparison

Grok 3 Pro wins 3, o4 Vision wins 9, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.

BenchmarkGrok 3 Proo4 VisionGapWinner
MMLU-Pro83.584.20.7o4 Vision
GPQA Diamond81.380.90.4Grok 3 Pro
SWE-bench Verified71.475.64.2o4 Vision
HumanEval89.988.91.0Grok 3 Pro
MATH-50087.091.74.7o4 Vision
AIME 202585.580.45.1Grok 3 Pro
LiveCodeBench80.781.30.6o4 Vision
IFEval88.689.10.5o4 Vision
TruthfulQA84.685.30.7o4 Vision
HellaSwag90.791.20.5o4 Vision
MMMU78.980.71.8o4 Vision
Arena Elo1448.41473.224.8o4 Vision

Price analysis

On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Grok 3 Pro costs about $30.83 per million tokens and o4 Vision costs about $35.27. Grok 3 Pro is roughly 13% cheaper than o4 Vision. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.

Grok 3 Pro has the larger context window at 400,000 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 Pro wins 3, o4 Vision wins 9, and 0 are tied. On the index average, o4 Vision leads Grok 3 Pro by 0.7 points (84.5 versus 83.8).

The price picture favours Grok 3 Pro. The context picture favours Grok 3 Pro. 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 o4 Vision for quality-sensitive work and Grok 3 Pro for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.

Choose Grok 3 Pro if

  • Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
  • You need the larger 400,000-token context window.

Choose o4 Vision if

  • You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.

FAQ

Is Grok 3 Pro better than o4 Vision?

On the index average, o4 Vision leads Grok 3 Pro by 0.7 points (84.5 versus 83.8). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Grok 3 Pro wins 3 benchmarks, o4 Vision wins 9.

Which is cheaper, Grok 3 Pro or o4 Vision?

Grok 3 Pro is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $30.83 per million tokens, versus $35.27 for o4 Vision.

Which has the larger context window?

Grok 3 Pro has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens. o4 Vision has 200,000 tokens.

Are these models open weights?

Grok 3 Pro is proprietary; o4 Vision is proprietary.

Which should I choose for production?

If you need a single default, start with o4 Vision for quality-sensitive work and Grok 3 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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