Free Grok API in 2026: What xAI Actually Offers

Short answer: xAI's API has no free tier. On 2026-11-05 the xAI models page lists a price per million tokens for every model and says nothing about free usage, free credits or a rate-limited free plan, and the docs overview mentions no free credits or promotions either. If you want to call a Grok model for $0, the honest options are narrow. This guide says what exists, what we could not confirm, and which free models come closest.

What xAI publishes today #

• Pricing. The models page states "Prices shown per million tokens" and that "requests whose prompt reaches the listed token threshold are billed at the higher rate for all tokens in the request". Every listed model and API has a paid price. Read the long-prompt rule before you send large inputs: crossing the threshold raises the price of the whole request, not just the extra tokens.
• Free credits. Neither the models page nor the docs overview we read mentions sign-up credits, a free tier or a data-sharing credit programme. If you saw such an offer in an older article, it is not on these pages now.
• Rate limits. Neither page gives rate-limit numbers. They are in the console after you sign in.

We keep xAI on our vendor watch list, which records the same finding: no free tier as of 2026-10-27, with the models page as the source. Follow the vendor there to see when that changes.

Grok for Startups #

xAI runs a startup programme at x.ai/startups. We could not open the page on 2026-11-05 (the server answered 403 to our request), so we cannot quote it today. Our watch-list note from 2026-10-27 records what the page said then: credits after an application, "20% on approval, 80% once running", over "six to twelve months of real usage", with no credit amounts and no eligibility rules published. That is a program for startups that apply and are accepted, not a free tier for developers, and the terms may have changed since. Read the page yourself before you plan around it. We list a startup programme as an offer in the catalog only once its terms are public, so there is no Grok for Startups entry yet.

Grok models through other providers #

CleanAPIs advertises 0.5M free tokens a month, 80 requests a minute and one OpenAI-compatible endpoint for chat models including Grok. Its catalog row is marked as changed, so open its page and confirm that a Grok model is still on the free plan before you use it. Treat any gateway that resells Grok at no cost with care: you are trusting a third party with your prompts, and the free plan may be limited to small models or a small monthly total.

The nearest free alternatives #

If what you need is not Grok itself but a capable model with a free API, the catalog has several. None of them is Grok, and we make no claim that they match it on quality.

Should you pay for the Grok API? #

If you need Grok specifically, for example because you already built on its tool-calling or its long context, the cheapest safe route is the paid API with a spending limit you set in the console, and a model ID kept in configuration so you can switch to a free provider later. Most OpenAI-compatible SDKs work with a changed base URL, key and model name, which keeps the switching cost low. Test your prompts on a free model first and move to Grok only if the difference matters for your use case.

Steps if you decide to try it #

1. Open the xAI console and create an account.
2. Look in the billing section for any credit on your account. If none is shown, there is none; do not assume one.
3. Set a spend limit before you create a key.
4. Call the API with an OpenAI-compatible SDK and the model ID from the models page.
5. Re-check the models page in a month: prices and free offers change.

Limits and the catch #

• No free tier is documented. Any claim of a "free Grok API" should point to an xAI page; we found none.
• Programs are not tiers. Grok for Startups, as we last read it, needs an application and gives credits on its own schedule.
• Gateways change. Free plans on resellers are the first thing to change; CleanAPIs is flagged as changed.
• Keep your options open. Hold the base URL and model name in config so you can switch providers in minutes.