Which is cheaper, Grok-3 Mini or Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning?
As of August 25, 2026, Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning is 13% cheaper on blended LLM API pricing. Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning costs $0.20 per million input tokens and $0.50 per million output tokens ($0.70 blended 1M-in + 1M-out). Grok-3 Mini costs $0.30 / $0.50 per million tokens ($0.80 blended). Sources: https://docs.x.ai/docs/models and https://docs.x.ai/docs/models. The cheapest LLM for your app still depends on how many output tokens you generate.
How much does Grok-3 Mini vs Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning cost per million tokens?
Grok-3 Mini xAI API pricing is $0.30 input and $0.50 output per million tokens via xAI. Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning xAI API pricing is $0.20 input and $0.50 output per million tokens via xAI. Use those four numbers, not ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro subscription prices, when you are comparing APIs.
Which is better for coding, Grok-3 Mini or Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning?
Grok-3 Mini leads on LiveCodeBench: Grok-3 Mini at 80.4% vs Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning at 42.6%. SWE-bench measures real GitHub fixes; LiveCodeBench measures contest programming.
What is the context window for Grok-3 Mini vs Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning?
Grok-3 Mini supports a 128K token context window, while Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning supports 2M tokens. Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning offers a larger context window. Filling a larger window bills more input tokens, so the cheaper-per-million model can still cost more on long documents.
Which model performs better on benchmarks, Grok-3 Mini or Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning?
Grok-3 Mini leads on 3 of 3 shared benchmarks versus Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning's 0 wins. Check the comparison table for GPQA Diamond, SWE-bench, MMLU, HLE, and the other evals we track. Token price and benchmark score together are the usual LLM comparison, not either number alone.
Is Grok-3 Mini or Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning better for production use?
Both Grok-3 Mini and Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning are production API models. For cost-sensitive production traffic, Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning has better economics on the blended 1M-in + 1M-out scale. For maximum capability, weight the benchmark table for your domain. Many production stacks route cheap models for drafts and a frontier model for the hard turn, which is usually cheaper than sending everything to the expensive API.
Can I switch between Grok-3 Mini and Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning in my app?
Yes. Call Grok-3 Mini through xAI and Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning through xAI with separate API keys, or through a gateway that already wraps both. Keep prompts in tokens, not characters, when you estimate the invoice. AnotherWrapper templates can swap providers without rewriting auth and billing.
How accurate is this Grok-3 Mini vs Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning pricing data?
List rates are the latest published xAI API pricing and xAI API pricing, quoted per million tokens. Official rate sheets: https://docs.x.ai/docs/models and https://docs.x.ai/docs/models. Prompt caching, batch APIs, and committed-use discounts can change the invoice. Benchmark scores are from official publications and independent evals, updated as new numbers land.
What is the output token limit for Grok-3 Mini and Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning?
Grok-3 Mini supports up to 8K output tokens per request, while Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning supports up to 30K output tokens. Output tokens are usually the expensive half of API pricing, so a higher max output cap is a capability, not a discount.
Which model has better throughput, Grok-3 Mini or Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning?
Grok-3 Mini runs at approximately 100 tokens/second while Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning runs at 90 tokens/second. Grok-3 Mini is faster in raw throughput. Throughput (tokens per second) and time-to-first-token are why two models with the same per-million-token price can still feel different in chat and agents.
How do I switch the models in this Grok-3 Mini vs Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning comparison?
Use the model pickers at the top of this LLM comparison. Search any model in the index and the URL updates. Open Grok-3 Mini or Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning from the sidebar for the single-model API pricing page, or go back to the LLM pricing table to sort by cheapest blended cost.
