Grok 4 Turbo vs o4 Max: which model should you choose?
We compared Grok 4 Turbo and o4 Max on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Grok 4 Turbo has the stronger average benchmark score; Grok 4 Turbo is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Grok 4 Turbo
Grok 4 Turbo is a frontier model from xAI. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $19.21 per million input tokens and $87.37 per million output tokens, and averages 86.7 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $19.21 / 1M
- Output
- $87.37 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 86.7
- Open weights
- No
o4 Max
o4 Max is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 2,000,000-token context window, costs $19.51 per million input tokens and $93.98 per million output tokens, and averages 86.2 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $19.51 / 1M
- Output
- $93.98 / 1M
- Context
- 2,000,000
- Avg score
- 86.2
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Grok 4 Turbo | o4 Max | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $19.21 | $19.51 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $87.37 | $93.98 | A |
| Context window | 1,000,000 | 2,000,000 | B |
| Max output | 65,536 | 65,536 | Tie |
| Average score | 86.7 | 86.2 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1466.9 | 1486.0 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Grok 4 Turbo wins 6, o4 Max wins 5, and 1 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Grok 4 Turbo | o4 Max | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 86.1 | 86.3 | 0.2 | o4 Max |
| GPQA Diamond | 84.5 | 80.1 | 4.4 | Grok 4 Turbo |
| SWE-bench Verified | 73.8 | 79.8 | 6.0 | o4 Max |
| HumanEval | 92.9 | 94.6 | 1.7 | o4 Max |
| MATH-500 | 92.1 | 90.6 | 1.5 | Grok 4 Turbo |
| AIME 2025 | 85.2 | 84.8 | 0.4 | Grok 4 Turbo |
| LiveCodeBench | 84.7 | 80.6 | 4.1 | Grok 4 Turbo |
| IFEval | 91.1 | 91.1 | 0.0 | Tie |
| TruthfulQA | 88.8 | 87.1 | 1.7 | Grok 4 Turbo |
| HellaSwag | 92.5 | 91.7 | 0.8 | Grok 4 Turbo |
| MMMU | 81.7 | 81.9 | 0.2 | o4 Max |
| Arena Elo | 1466.9 | 1486.0 | 19.1 | o4 Max |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Grok 4 Turbo costs about $36.25 per million tokens and o4 Max costs about $38.13. Grok 4 Turbo is roughly 5% cheaper than o4 Max. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
o4 Max has the larger context window at 2,000,000 tokens, compared with 1,000,000 for Grok 4 Turbo. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Grok 4 Turbo wins 6, o4 Max wins 5, and 1 are tied. On the index average, Grok 4 Turbo leads o4 Max by 0.5 points (86.7 versus 86.2).
The price picture favours Grok 4 Turbo. The context picture favours o4 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 4 Turbo for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.
Choose Grok 4 Turbo if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
Choose o4 Max if
- You need the larger 2,000,000-token context window.
FAQ
Is Grok 4 Turbo better than o4 Max?
On the index average, Grok 4 Turbo leads o4 Max by 0.5 points (86.7 versus 86.2). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Grok 4 Turbo wins 6 benchmarks, o4 Max wins 5.
Which is cheaper, Grok 4 Turbo or o4 Max?
Grok 4 Turbo is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $36.25 per million tokens, versus $38.13 for o4 Max.
Which has the larger context window?
o4 Max has the larger context window at 2,000,000 tokens. Grok 4 Turbo has 1,000,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Grok 4 Turbo is proprietary; o4 Max is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Grok 4 Turbo for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.