Grok 3 vs Grok 3 Mini

We ran both models across our 12-test suite and report wins/ties from our testing. Scores shown are our 1–5 internal ratings and ranks reference the provided model rankings. Detailed results: 1) structured output — Grok 3 5 vs Mini 4; Grok 3 tied for 1st on structured output ("tied for 1st with 24 other models"). This means Grok 3 better follows JSON/schema formats for extraction and integrations. 2) strategic analysis — Grok 3 5 vs Mini 3; Grok 3 is tied for 1st (25 others share) — practical for nuanced tradeoffs and numerical reasoning. 3) agentic planning — Grok 3 5 vs Mini 3; Grok 3 tied for 1st while Mini ranks 42 of 54 — Grok 3 decomposes goals and recovery plans more reliably. 4) multilingual — Grok 3 5 vs Mini 4; Grok 3 tied for 1st (34 others) — better cross-language parity. 5) constrained rewriting — Grok 3 3 vs Mini 4; Mini wins and ranks 6 of 53 — Mini compresses/rewrites into hard limits more often. 6) tool calling — Grok 3 4 vs Mini 5; Mini tied for 1st on tool calling — Mini selects functions, arguments, and sequencing with higher accuracy in our tests. 7) faithfulness — both 5 — both tied for 1st (32 others); both stick to source material well. 8) classification — both 4 — both tied for 1st (29 others); both are equally capable routing/categorization engines in our tests. 9) long context — both 5 — both tied for 1st (36 others); both handle 30K+ token contexts. 10) safety calibration — both 2 — identical rank (rank 12 of 55) — both show similar refusal/allow behavior on harmful prompts. 11) persona consistency — both 5 — tied for 1st (36 others) — both maintain persona and resist injection in chat. 12) creative problem solving — both 3 — tied (rank 30) — neither stands out for non-obvious idea generation. In summary: Grok 3 wins 4 tests (structured output, strategic analysis, agentic planning, multilingual), Grok 3 Mini wins 2 tests (constrained rewriting, tool calling), six tests tie. For tasks requiring strict schema output, long-form strategic reasoning, or multilingual equivalence, Grok 3 shows meaningful advantages in our benchmarks. For tool integrations and cost-constrained rewrite/compression tasks, Grok 3 Mini is stronger and far cheaper.

Grok 3 costs substantially more: input $3 per mTok and output $15 per mTok versus Grok 3 Mini's input $0.3 and output $0.5 per mTok (priceRatio = 30). Per 1M tokens (1,000 mTok) the raw costs are: Grok 3 — input $3,000; output $15,000. Grok 3 Mini — input $300; output $500. If you assume a 50/50 split between input and output tokens, monthly totals are: 1M tokens — Grok 3 $9,000 vs Mini $400; 10M tokens — Grok 3 $90,000 vs Mini $4,000; 100M tokens — Grok 3 $900,000 vs Mini $40,000. Teams doing large-scale inference, multi-tenant APIs, or edge deployments should care deeply about this gap; projects doing low-volume, high-value tasks (audits, legal summarization, complex extraction) may justify Grok 3's premium.

Choose Grok 3 if you need enterprise-grade structured outputs, agentic planning, strategic numerical analysis, or best multilingual parity and can justify higher inference costs. Specific examples: production ETL/data-extraction pipelines, multi-step planning agents, and cross-language customer support where correctness and schema adherence matter. Choose Grok 3 Mini if you need dramatic cost savings, best-in-class tool calling, or efficient constrained rewriting — ideal for high-volume chatbots, large-scale inference, or integrations where token cost is the primary constraint.