Grok AI free: What you can use without paying, what the paid plans add and what the app does

Plans, prices and features checked on the official pages on October 27, 2026.

Yes, you can use Grok for free: grok.com opens a chat where you can message Grok directly, and you can sign in or sign up from the same page. xAI attaches usage limits and paid plans to the heavier features, such as video, the most capable models and agent tools. This guide separates what xAI’s pages confirm from what they leave open.

One caveat up front. xAI’s consumer pricing pages could not be opened for this guide on October 27, 2026, so no subscription price is quoted below. The developer price list was readable, and its figures are used throughout.

What Grok is and who makes it

Grok is the family of AI models and apps built by xAI. The consumer side is a chat assistant at grok.com. The developer side is an API documented at docs.x.ai.

The chat page greets you with the prompt “What should we explore?” It offers a Fast mode and slash commands, including one labeled “AI Agent”. Sending a message means you accept xAI’s Terms and Privacy Policy, both linked from the page, along with a privacy choices link.

The pages read for this guide do not cover company history, headquarters, ownership structure or an origin of the name. They are not stated here. Elon Musk’s role and the product’s background are covered in our earlier piece on Grok Imagine.

What the free chat gives you

The confirmed part is short: you can open grok.com and message Grok without first choosing a paid plan. xAI’s documentation says the newest model, Grok 4.7, is its most capable and recommended for code and general chat. It does not say which model, or how many messages, the free chat includes.

Third-party trackers publish estimates of free message caps, but they disagree with each other and xAI does not publish them on the pages read here. Treat any exact number as unverified. When a limit is hit, the app tells you; the reason is simply that each reply costs xAI compute.

The same applies to a related question, why Grok has a limit at all. xAI bills developers per token for the same models (prices below), which shows the underlying cost of heavy use.

What Grok can do: Chat, code, images, video and voice

xAI’s developer documentation lists the capabilities behind the app:

• Text and reasoning: multi-turn chat and function calling through the Responses API. Real-time information needs the Web Search or X Search tools to be enabled, because the Grok 4.7 knowledge cutoff is May 2026.
• Code: Grok Build, an agentic coding tool for the API and command line. xAI recommends Grok 4.7 for code.
• Images: Imagine generates images from text, edits existing images and understands visual content. Editing accepts up to five reference images in the 2.0 model.
• Video: Imagine video covers text-to-video, image-to-video and reference-to-video. Video 1.5 offers native 1080p for the first two.
• Voice: text-to-speech, speech-to-text and real-time speech-to-speech. Grok Voice 3.0 arrived in October; see our report on Grok Voice 3.0.
• Agents: Grok Bot, launched in August, positions itself as a set of long-running AI coworkers that live on an always-on remote machine, taking sign-offs through chat, linking to outside apps and running scheduled tasks.

Which of these appear in the free app, and with what caps, is set by xAI’s plan grid. That grid could not be read for this guide, so check it before assuming a feature is free.

Plans and what they add: What could and could not be confirmed

xAI has sold Grok through named tiers, among them SuperGrok, and third-party sites report that the lineup was reorganized in October 2026. Those reports differ on tier names and prices, and they are not official. For that reason, this guide does not list a monthly price for any consumer tier.

The plan page at grok.com/plans is the place to read the current tiers, limits and annual discounts. When comparing plans, look at four rows in particular:

• how many chat messages and reasoning requests are allowed per period;
• whether Imagine video is included, and at what resolution and length;
• whether Grok Bot and Grok Build are included;
• whether the plan covers API use. Consumer plans and the API are billed separately.

The one place xAI’s own price list is readable is the developer platform, where usage is billed per unit. Those are the figures below.

Prices checked on October 27, 2026. Source: xAI developer pricing and model pages. For how these compare with rival models, see our AI API pricing tracker.

How to get started and where to use it

1. Open grok.com in a browser. No download is needed to start a chat.
2. Type a message, or sign in or sign up from the same page to keep your history. The page states that sending a message means accepting the Terms and Privacy Policy.
3. Use the model or mode selector, such as Fast, to choose speed over depth.
4. Open grok.com/plans to see what a paid tier unlocks before you upgrade.
5. For apps, use the official links on grok.com rather than third-party APK sites. This guide did not confirm app store listings, so look for the publisher name xAI.

Developers can start at docs.x.ai, where the API, Grok Build and Grok Bot are documented.

Limits and things to know before relying on it

Model changes are frequent. The release notes show Grok 4.5 in July, Grok 4.6 in August and Grok 4.7 in September. Older Imagine and voice models are being retired: grok-imagine-image-quality retires on November 2, 2026, and Voice 2.0 is deprecated. Developers who pin a model name need to watch these notices.

Live facts need search. The model’s knowledge stops in May 2026, so real-time answers depend on the Web Search or X Search tools.

Privacy deserves a read. The chat page links a Privacy Policy and privacy choices. Whether chats are used for training, how long they are kept and how to delete them are set out there, not in the pages read for this guide. Read them before pasting sensitive material.

Companions and adult content are common searches. No xAI page read for this guide describes companion characters or adult image rules, so no claim is made. Check xAI’s usage policy and the in-app settings.

Agent tools carry their own risk. Grok Bot is described as running on a remote machine that stays on, with chat-based sign-offs and links to outside apps. Review which accounts you connect; our piece on agents signing in without seeing passwords covers one approach to that risk.

Grok next to other assistants

The honest comparison depends on the free tier and plan details above, which are still unverified, so only structural differences are listed.

For free video options beyond Grok, our guide to free AI video generators lists the limits of the main tools.

Common questions