Grok Imagine pricing at a glance — the three channels
If you search for “grok imagine price” you will find pages talking about SuperGrok subscriptions, pages talking about API per-token rates, and pages that conflate Grok the chatbot with Grok Imagine the image and video generator. They are not the same thing, and none of them give you the full picture in one place.
Grok Imagine — xAI’s image and video generation suite, sometimes still called Aurora — is priced through three completely separate channels:
| Channel | How you pay | Entry point | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consumer subscription | Monthly flat rate | Free (limited) / $10–$300/mo | Individuals, creators, ad hoc use |
| xAI API (direct) | Per-image or per-second | Pay-as-you-go, no monthly minimum | Developers building products |
| Aggregator API | Per-image or per-second | Pay-as-you-go, no monthly minimum | Developers who need multiple model families |
Each channel has its own pricing logic, its own limits, and its own hidden gotchas. This article walks through all three, with the actual per-image and per-second math that the official pages leave you to calculate yourself.
One thing upfront: we run Modellix, an API aggregator that offers Grok Imagine models alongside 210+ other image and video models through a single API key. We have a commercial interest in the aggregator section of this comparison. Every xAI figure here was pulled from xAI’s official pricing page and x.ai/pricing on July 28, 2026. Every Modellix figure is from our own model pages on the same date. Where we could not verify something, we say so.
What you get for free — and what you don’t
The short answer: Grok Imagine is not free in any practical sense. The free tier on grok.com gives you a taste — community reports suggest roughly three image generations per day using a basic version of the Aurora engine, with no video generation at all. Rate limits make sustained workflows impossible.
Here is what the free tier actually includes, based on the official x.ai pricing page and community reporting:
- Image generation: Limited to approximately 3 per day (xAI does not publish an exact figure; this is based on consistent community reports on Reddit and independent testing)
- Video generation: Not available on free tier
- Model access: Rate-limited Grok 4.3 with basic Aurora image capabilities — not the full Grok Imagine suite
- Voice mode, DeepSearch, real-time web search: Included but throttled
The free tier is a sampling tier. It demonstrates what Grok Imagine can do, but if you are generating images for a project, a product, or a workflow, you will hit the wall within your first session.
If you landed here searching “is Grok Imagine free,” the answer is no — not for anything beyond casual experimentation. The real pricing starts at $10/month.
Consumer subscription pricing — SuperGrok, Heavy, and X Premium
Grok Imagine access comes through two parallel subscription paths: standalone Grok (SuperGrok tiers) and X-platform-bundled (X Premium tiers). They unlock the same image and video generation capabilities but at different price points and with different bundled features.
Standalone Grok subscriptions (grok.com)
| Tier | Monthly Price | Annual Price | Image Generation | Video Generation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | ~3/day (basic Aurora) | None |
| SuperGrok Lite | $10 | $96 ($8/mo) | Basic Imagine access | Not specified |
| SuperGrok | $30 | $300 ($25/mo) | Full Imagine, higher limits | Full access |
| SuperGrok Heavy | $300 | $2,880 ($240/mo) | Highest limits, priority queue | Highest limits |
Source: x.ai/pricing and grok.com/plans, retrieved July 28, 2026.
SuperGrok ($30/month) is the tier most people mean when they ask “what does Grok Imagine cost.” It unlocks the full Grok Imagine suite — image generation at 1K and 2K resolutions, video generation up to 720p and 30 seconds, and access to Grok 4.5. The exact per-day image limit is not published by xAI, but it is described as “higher rate limits across all features” compared to free.
SuperGrok Lite ($10/month) is a newer entry point. It includes basic Imagine access but with lower limits than the full SuperGrok plan. The exact quota difference is not documented publicly.
SuperGrok Heavy ($300/month) is a compute tier, not a feature tier. It does not unlock additional Imagine capabilities — it gives you more usage volume, priority queue access during peak demand, and a confirmed allocation of Grok 4.5 (lower tiers may receive Grok 4.3 during staged rollouts). For image and video generation specifically, Heavy is only worth it if you are generating at volumes that saturate the standard SuperGrok limits.
X-bundled subscriptions (x.com)
| Tier | Monthly Price | Grok Imagine Access |
|---|---|---|
| X Premium | $8 | Limited — Grok inside X, no standalone Imagine |
| X Premium+ | $40 | Full Grok Imagine, comparable to SuperGrok |
X Premium+ at $40/month costs $10 more than standalone SuperGrok at $30/month. The extra $10 buys you X platform features — ad-free feed, verification checkmark, creator revenue sharing. If you only want Grok Imagine for image and video generation, SuperGrok at $30/month is the better deal.
What the subscription pages don’t tell you
xAI does not publish per-day or per-month generation quotas for any tier. The SuperGrok page says “higher rate limits” and “more usage” without specifying what those limits are. Independent reporting from suprmind.ai (July 2026) suggests the free tier caps at roughly 3 images per day, but no equivalent number exists for paid tiers.
This opacity matters because “unlimited” is not how these plans work — they are rate-limited, and the limit varies by demand. If you are building a product that depends on predictable image generation throughput, a subscription is the wrong pricing model entirely.
xAI API pricing — per-image and per-second costs
If you need programmatic access — generating images and videos from your application, not from a chat interface — you use the xAI API. The pricing is per-unit: per image generated, per second of video. There is no monthly minimum, no prepaid package, and no points system to decode.
Here is every Grok Imagine model available through the xAI API, with the total cost per image or per second calculated for you. The official pricing page lists input and output costs separately; we have summed them into a single per-unit total.
Image generation API pricing
| Model | Input Cost | Output Cost (1K) | Output Cost (2K) | Total per image (1K) | Total per image (2K) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| grok-imagine-image (standard) | $0.002/img | $0.02/img | $0.02/img | $0.022 | $0.022 |
| grok-imagine-image-quality | $0.01/img | $0.05/img | $0.07/img | $0.06 | $0.08 |
Source: docs.x.ai/developers/pricing, retrieved July 28, 2026. All prices in USD.
The standard model (grok-imagine-image) costs $0.022 per image regardless of resolution — 1K and 2K are priced the same. The quality variant costs more: $0.06 at 1K, $0.08 at 2K.
For context: generating 1,000 images with the standard model costs $22. Generating the same 1,000 images with the quality variant at 1K costs $60.
Video generation API pricing
| Model | Input Cost | Per-Second Output Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| grok-imagine-video (T2V) | $0.01/sec + $0.002/img | 480p: $0.05/sec, 720p: $0.07/sec | Text-to-video, up to 15s, 720p max |
| grok-imagine-video-1.5 (I2V) | $0.01/img | 480p: $0.08/sec, 720p: $0.14/sec, 1080p: $0.25/sec | Image-to-video, up to 15s, 1080p max |
Source: docs.x.ai/developers/pricing, retrieved July 28, 2026.
For the standard video model (grok-imagine-video), a 6-second clip at 720p costs approximately $0.43 total ($0.06 input + $0.42 output). For the newer 1.5 model at 1080p, a 6-second clip costs roughly $1.51 ($0.01 input + $1.50 output).
What the API pricing page doesn’t tell you
The xAI API pricing page does not show totals. Every model lists input cost and output cost separately, and the reader must add them. For image models, the input cost is per image while output cost varies by resolution — two different units that do not sum intuitively.
Also, xAI uses a task-based architecture for image generation: you submit a creation request, receive a task ID, and poll for completion. The API charges you when the task completes, not when you submit. If a task fails — which can happen due to content filtering or model availability — you are not charged. This is a fair billing model, but it is not documented on the pricing page.
Aggregator pricing — Modellix and the pay-as-you-go alternative
API aggregators like Modellix offer the same Grok Imagine models through a different billing model. Instead of going through xAI’s API directly, you call a unified API that routes your request to the model. The pricing is per-image or per-second, with no prepaid commitment, no monthly minimum, and no separate xAI account required.
Here is how Modellix pricing compares to the official xAI API for Grok Imagine models:
Image generation — Modellix vs. xAI direct
| Model | xAI Direct (per image) | Modellix (per image) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| grok-imagine-image (1K) | $0.022 | $0.023 | +$0.001 (4.5%) |
| grok-imagine-image (2K) | $0.022 | $0.023 | +$0.001 (4.5%) |
| grok-imagine-image-quality (1K) | $0.06 | $0.0575 | −$0.0025 (−4.2%) |
| grok-imagine-image-quality (2K) | $0.08 | $0.0805 | +$0.0005 (0.6%) |
Modellix prices from modellix.ai/models/xai/grok-imagine-image and modellix.ai/models/xai/grok-imagine-image-quality, retrieved July 28, 2026.
For standard image generation, Modellix is $0.001 per image more than the xAI API — a 4.5% difference, or one extra dollar per thousand images. For the quality variant at 1K resolution, Modellix is actually $0.0025 cheaper per image.
Video generation — Modellix vs. xAI direct
| Model | xAI Direct (per second, 480p) | Modellix (per second, 480p) |
|---|---|---|
| grok-imagine-video | ~$0.06/sec | $0.0575/sec |
Modellix price from modellix.ai/models/xai/grok-imagine-video, retrieved July 28, 2026. xAI price calculated as input + output for 480p tier.
The per-unit price difference between the official xAI API and an aggregator is negligible — within a few percentage points for every model and resolution. The choice between them is not about per-unit cost. It is about everything else.
What an aggregator changes (besides the price)
Single API key for 210+ models. xAI’s API only gives you Grok models. If your product also needs Kling for cinematic video, Seedream for professional stills, or Wan for audio-synced clips, you need separate accounts, separate API keys, and separate billing for each provider. An aggregator consolidates all of them behind one endpoint. (We have written separately about Grok Imagine alternatives if you are evaluating whether Grok is the right model family at all.)
Pay-as-you-go without the overhead. The xAI API is pay-as-you-go too — but you still need to create an xAI account, manage API keys, monitor usage, and handle billing through their console. For teams already using multiple AI model providers, an aggregator removes that per-provider operational overhead.
ISO 27001 and 27701 certification. Modellix is ISO 27001 (information security) and 27701 (privacy information management) certified, with a NASDAQ-listed parent company. For teams with compliance requirements, this can matter more than saving half a cent per image.
Transparent per-call logs. Every API call is logged with the model, parameters, and exact cost. This is useful for cost attribution across teams and projects — something the xAI console does not provide at the same granularity.
The tradeoff is straightforward: if you only use Grok models and do not care about consolidated billing or compliance certifications, the xAI API direct is fractionally cheaper. If you use multiple model families, need a single integration point, or require enterprise-grade compliance, an aggregator is the more practical choice.
Subscription vs. API — the break-even math
The question the PAA box keeps surfacing — “is it worth paying for Grok Imagine?” — has a mathematical answer. It depends entirely on how many images you generate per month.
At the xAI API rate of $0.022 per standard image, here is how many images you would need to generate before the API becomes cheaper than a SuperGrok subscription:
| Plan | Monthly Cost | Equivalent Images (at $0.022/img) | Break-even Point |
|---|---|---|---|
| SuperGrok Lite | $10/mo | 455 images | Above 455 images/mo → API is cheaper |
| SuperGrok | $30/mo | 1,364 images | Above 1,364 images/mo → API is cheaper |
| SuperGrok Heavy | $300/mo | 13,636 images | Above 13,636 images/mo → API is cheaper |
The math is simple: divide the monthly subscription cost by the per-image API rate. If you generate fewer than ~1,300 images per month, SuperGrok at $30/month is almost certainly cheaper than the API — even before accounting for the fact that SuperGrok includes Grok 4.5 chat, DeepSearch, voice mode, and other features that have their own API costs.
If you are a developer building a product that generates images programmatically, you are almost certainly above that threshold. A single user session that generates 10 image variations per prompt, at 50 sessions per day, hits 15,000 images per month — past the Heavy break-even point.
The API is not always the cheaper option. For individuals and small teams doing ad hoc image generation through a chat interface, SuperGrok at $30/month is the best deal in AI image generation right now. But for anyone building software that calls Grok Imagine programmatically, the subscription model does not work at all — you need an API.
Which channel should you choose?
Here is the decision framework, based on what you are actually building:
You are an individual creator making images for social media, concept art, or personal projects.
→ SuperGrok at $30/month. You get the full Grok Imagine suite, Grok 4.5 chat, and video generation. No per-image math to think about. The annual plan at $25/month saves you $60/year.
You are a developer integrating image generation into an application.
→ xAI API or aggregator API. You need programmatic access, predictable per-unit costs, and no rate limits tied to a consumer account. The choice between direct and aggregator depends on whether you use other model families (see previous section).
You are a team that needs multiple AI model types — images, video, text-to-speech — behind one integration.
→ Aggregator API. The operational simplicity of one API key, one billing account, and one integration for 210+ models outweighs the fraction-of-a-cent per-image difference on any single model.
You want to try Grok Imagine programmatically before committing.
→ Modellix offers $10–30 in free credit for new accounts. You can call the Grok Imagine models through the same API you would use in production, test your integration, and only pay when you exceed the credit. xAI does not publish a free API tier for image generation.
You are just curious what Grok Imagine can do.
→ The free tier on grok.com. Three images per day is enough to see the output quality and decide whether it fits your needs. Just do not plan a workflow around it.
The Grok Imagine pricing landscape looks complex on the surface — six consumer tiers, two API pricing models, and an aggregator channel that barely anyone talks about. But the choice is simpler than it appears: subscription if you chat, API if you build, and aggregator if you build with more than one model family.
Pricing data verified July 28, 2026. xAI updates its pricing periodically — check docs.x.ai/developers/pricing for the latest API rates and x.ai/pricing for current subscription plans.
