Grok 3 vs o3 Vision: which model should you choose?
We compared Grok 3 and o3 Vision on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Grok 3 has the stronger average benchmark score; o3 Vision is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Grok 3
Grok 3 is a multimodal model from xAI. It offers a 128,000-token context window, costs $15.84 per million input tokens and $70.31 per million output tokens, and averages 82.8 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $15.84 / 1M
- Output
- $70.31 / 1M
- Context
- 128,000
- Avg score
- 82.8
- Open weights
- No
o3 Vision
o3 Vision is a multimodal model from OpenAI. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $15.24 per million input tokens and $65.25 per million output tokens, and averages 81.8 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $15.24 / 1M
- Output
- $65.25 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 81.8
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Grok 3 | o3 Vision | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $15.84 | $15.24 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $70.31 | $65.25 | B |
| Context window | 128,000 | 1,000,000 | B |
| Max output | 4,096 | 8,192 | B |
| Average score | 82.8 | 81.8 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1447.2 | 1436.5 | A |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Grok 3 wins 8, o3 Vision wins 4, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Grok 3 | o3 Vision | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 81.9 | 83.6 | 1.7 | o3 Vision |
| GPQA Diamond | 80.0 | 77.8 | 2.2 | Grok 3 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 72.6 | 71.8 | 0.8 | Grok 3 |
| HumanEval | 85.3 | 85.6 | 0.3 | o3 Vision |
| MATH-500 | 88.7 | 84.4 | 4.3 | Grok 3 |
| AIME 2025 | 81.1 | 82.4 | 1.3 | o3 Vision |
| LiveCodeBench | 74.3 | 73.7 | 0.6 | Grok 3 |
| IFEval | 91.0 | 89.3 | 1.7 | Grok 3 |
| TruthfulQA | 85.4 | 85.8 | 0.4 | o3 Vision |
| HellaSwag | 91.4 | 89.7 | 1.7 | Grok 3 |
| MMMU | 79.1 | 75.7 | 3.4 | Grok 3 |
| Arena Elo | 1447.2 | 1436.5 | 10.7 | Grok 3 |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Grok 3 costs about $29.46 per million tokens and o3 Vision costs about $27.74. o3 Vision is roughly 6% cheaper than Grok 3. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
o3 Vision has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens, compared with 128,000 for Grok 3. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Grok 3 wins 8, o3 Vision wins 4, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Grok 3 leads o3 Vision by 1.0 points (82.8 versus 81.8).
The price picture favours o3 Vision. The context picture favours o3 Vision. 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 for quality-sensitive work and o3 Vision for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose Grok 3 if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
Choose o3 Vision if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 1,000,000-token context window.
- You need the larger 8,192-token output limit.
FAQ
Is Grok 3 better than o3 Vision?
On the index average, Grok 3 leads o3 Vision by 1.0 points (82.8 versus 81.8). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Grok 3 wins 8 benchmarks, o3 Vision wins 4.
Which is cheaper, Grok 3 or o3 Vision?
o3 Vision is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $27.74 per million tokens, versus $29.46 for Grok 3.
Which has the larger context window?
o3 Vision has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens. Grok 3 has 128,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Grok 3 is proprietary; o3 Vision is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Grok 3 for quality-sensitive work and o3 Vision for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.