When was Grok 4 released, and is it still maintained?

Grok 4 was released on 2025-07-09. Its catalog status is stable. Check the model page for deprecation notices before you build a long-lived integration on it.

Can you call Grok 4 with the OpenAI SDK you already use?

Yes. Grok 4 is reachable through an OpenAI-compatible endpoint, so an existing OpenAI SDK client works after pointing the base URL at MixRoute and setting the model parameter to grok-4-0709 . Keep your current request and response handling.

What should you evaluate before moving production traffic to Grok 4?

Before switching production traffic to Grok 4, run a pilot on a representative slice of your traffic and check output quality, latency at peak concurrency, and cost per request. Verify the error and retry behaviour, and confirm the request limits you depend on match your plan.

Does Grok 4 have a free tier?

Grok 4 is billed per use and the record publishes no free-tier allowance. The current published rates are input $3.0000 per 1M tokens and output $15.0000 per 1M tokens. Trial credit or promotional quota is tied to your account rather than to the model, so check the console before planning around a free tier.

Can you control the reasoning budget on Grok 4?

Grok 4 is a reasoning model. Reasoning effort can be tuned per request. Lower effort settings cut reasoning tokens and cost for routine work; reserve higher settings for problems that need deeper search. Measure quality at two or three settings before fixing one in production.

Model detail

Grok 4 0709

Provided by xAI

Pay-as-you-go

Grok 4 is xAI's latest reasoning model with a 256k context window. It supports parallel tool calling, structured outputs, and both image and text inputs. Note that reasoning is not exposed, reasoning cannot be disabled, and the reasoning effort cannot be specified. Pricing increases once the total tokens in a given request is greater than 128k tokens. See more details on the [xAI docs](https://docs.x.ai/docs/models/grok-4-0709)

Model specs

Model ID: grok-4-0709

Context length: 256K
Max output: –
I/O modalities
Released: 2025-07

API endpoints

One MixRoute gateway, OpenAI-compatible

OpenAI-compatible /v1/chat/completions POST

Pricing

Flat rate, unit: /1M Tokens

Input

$3.0000 /1M Tokens

Completion

$15.0000 /1M Tokens

Cache read

$0.7500 /1M Tokens

Selection summary

Quickly judge whether it fits your workload

What is this model good for?

xAI's latest reasoning model with a 256k context window

Grok 4 is xAI's latest reasoning model with a 256k context window. It supports parallel tool calling, structured outputs, and both image and text inputs.

What should you check before using it?

256,000 context tokens

xAI model that supports reasoning, tool calling and structured output. Knowledge cutoff: 2025-07. Released 2025-07-09.

Why use it through MixRoute?

Swap the base URL, keep the Grok 4 client

MixRoute serves Grok 4 on the OpenAI-compatible endpoint /v1/chat/completions; point your existing client at https://api.mixroute.ai/v1 with the model ID grok-4-0709 and re-run your integration tests.

Capabilities & compatibility

Unconfirmed capabilities stay "Unknown," no guesses

Tool calling

Grok 4 supports function and tool calls.

EX Send a tools definition; the response returns tool_calls to execute and feed results back.

Structured output

Grok 4 can produce JSON-formatted output on demand.

EX response_format: { type: "json_schema" } forces valid JSON output.

Streaming

Grok 4 supports streamed responses.

EX stream: true streams tokens incrementally, so chat UIs render as they arrive.

Prompt caching

Grok 4 supports prompt caching under supported routing conditions.

EX Keep the system prompt and tool definitions at the start of the request; repeated prefixes are automatically billed at the cache-read rate.

Vision input

Grok 4 can process image inputs alongside text.

EX Pass a base64-encoded image in a image_url content part alongside text messages.

OpenAI SDK

Call Grok 4 through MixRoute's OpenAI-compatible endpoint.

EX Change base_url to https://api.mixroute.ai/v1; everything else follows the OpenAI style.

Token cost estimator

Live estimate from this page's pricing, not an actual bill

Input tokens Max per request 256K

Output tokens

Requests / month

Cache hit rate 0%

Share of the same prefix read repeatedly, up to 100%

FAQ

Recorded results for Grok 4: aa_intelligence_index 37.8; arena_text 82.7. Benchmark positions are a coarse filter only — run your own prompts against the candidate models before you commit, because ranking shifts with task shape and prompt style.

Get started

01

Create an API key

Generate a key in the Console; one key calls every model.
02

Set the base URL

Fully OpenAI SDK-compatible; just swap the URL to connect.

https://api.mixroute.ai/v1
03

Specify the model ID

In the request's model field, enter:

grok-4-0709

Create an API key

New users get $5 in free credits

Test this model and alternate routes with the same request format

Start from a real workload, then let quality, total cost, and failure conditions decide whether to send production traffic.

Create an API key View integration docs