R1 vs Grok 4

Summary of our 12-test suite head-to-head (scores shown are from our testing). Wins/ties: Grok 4 wins classification (Grok 4 4 vs R1 2), long_context (5 vs 4), and safety_calibration (2 vs 1). R1 wins creative_problem_solving (5 vs 3) and agentic_planning (4 vs 3). The rest tie: structured_output (4/4), strategic_analysis (5/5), constrained_rewriting (4/4), tool_calling (4/4), faithfulness (5/5), persona_consistency (5/5), multilingual (5/5). What that means in practice: - Classification: Grok 4’s 4 vs R1’s 2 (R1 ranks 51/53; Grok 4 is tied for 1st) means Grok 4 is markedly better for routing, intent detection, and programmatic categorization in our tests. - Long-context: Grok 4’s 5 (tied for 1st) vs R1’s 4 (rank 38/55) indicates Grok 4 excels at retrieval and accuracy across 30K+ token contexts — plus it has a 256k context window vs R1’s 64k. - Safety_calibration: Grok 4 (2) vs R1 (1) shows Grok 4 more often refuses harmful prompts while allowing legitimate ones in our testing. - Creative_problem_solving and agentic_planning: R1 scores 5 and 4 respectively vs Grok 4’s 3 and 3, meaning R1 produced more non-obvious, feasible ideas and better goal decomposition/recovery in our evaluations. - Tooling and structured outputs: both models tie at 4 for tool_calling and structured_output, so function selection and JSON/schema adherence performed similarly. - Math/competitions: R1 includes math_level_5 93.1% and AIME_2025 53.3 in the payload (R1 ranks 8/14 on math_level_5 and 17/23 on AIME_2025); Grok 4 has no math entries in the provided data. Additional context from the payload: Grok 4 supports text+image+file→text and a 256k context window; R1 is text→text with a 64k window and has quirks requiring high max_completion_tokens and a 1,000-token minimum for max completion. All benchmark statements are from our testing.

Costs (per mTok): R1 input $0.70 / output $2.50; Grok 4 input $3 / output $15. Using a 50/50 input-output token mix (stated so readers can reproduce): at 1M tokens/month (1,000 mTok total → 500 mTok input + 500 mTok output) R1 ≈ $1,600 vs Grok 4 ≈ $9,000 (difference $7,400). At 10M tokens/month R1 ≈ $16,000 vs Grok 4 ≈ $90,000 (difference $74,000). At 100M tokens/month R1 ≈ $160,000 vs Grok 4 ≈ $900,000 (difference $740,000). Who should care: startups and high-volume API customers will see six-figure monthly savings by choosing R1 for heavy-throughput generative workloads; teams that require the 256k context window, multimodal inputs, or better safety calibration should budget for Grok 4’s higher fees.

Choose R1 if: you need a lower-cost production LLM that excels at creative problem-solving and agentic planning in our tests, or you expect very high token volumes (the input/output rates are $0.70/$2.50 per mTok). Choose Grok 4 if: you require top-tier long-context retrieval (256k window), multimodal inputs (images/files), stronger classification and safety calibration in our tests, and you can absorb substantially higher runtime costs ($3/$15 per mTok).