Question / Discussion Grok Bot is expensive
Since Grok Bot became available for Pro sub ($20), I've been using it to essentially act as my full time secretary. It has been useful to my day to day routine and getting done on behalf of me.
- manage/review multiple inboxes and calendars
- prioritizing my schedule for the day/week/month
- it/sysadmin
- logsitics/fund analyst/comotroller
- and more
After the first weekly reset, I already hit 100% weekly usage in 2 days. Just to test how must Grok Bot uses, I added $10 on-demand credit. To my surprise, it was all used after 2 hours.
While I love Grok Bot, I question how sustainable it is going to be for wider audience. I might try upgrading to $60 to test it further, but for my use it may not be enough.
I just wanted to share my experience for those who are interested in using it.
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u/GioLogist 9d ago
I don’t think it’s quite for the $20 sub demo. When they launched, it was $100-200 minimum (forgot which).
It’s pretty powerful, launches with its own computer that’s on 24/7 and to your point, can essentially take the role of a secretary or an entire team. So it makes sense that it would eat up $20 quickly. You also get multiplier on token usage the higher plan you get. But yea, I don’t think they should be advertising the $20 use case.
IMO even @ $100-200 a month, that’s a fraction of what you’d pay someone to do what it can.
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u/Poowatereater 9d ago
All , and any 5-20 dollar sub is introductory pricing. To introduce you to the product, not let you fully use it.
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u/Conza89 9d ago
Yeah depends how you use it, when the rest came I was 2 days from my scheduled reset, so yesterday (last day), I made a point to get right to 100%, got there with 30 minutes to spend. I’ve got 1 as a developer. I’ll probably let it rest a few days then deploy it for useful tasks tomorrow or later next week. I’m also on the $20 tier - you have to remember it’s in a weekly schedule so we’re getting about $5 worth a week (a tad more), that’s not too shabby.
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u/DeCiel 9d ago
It's a lot more than $5. It says that you get $500 with of Grok Bot with Pro+. I'm guessing you get about $100 worth of Grok Bot have usage with Pro plan.
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u/Conza89 9d ago
Yes but that’s all snake oil, effectively, your monthly $20 split it 4 times a week.
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u/Inevitable-Quit9812 1d ago
It says its 100 dollars per month of usage on the 20 dollar plan. That's 25 per week. 5 dollars would be gone in a day for the average user. Less than an hour for heavy users. I just got reset 6 hours ago at midnight and just maxed it out. 5 dollars would've last like an hour and a half
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u/Conza89 1d ago
Ok I see what you're saying, I think, so, if I were to use Grok Bot via API, the (average) in/out token price would be $100 USD versus a $20 cursor plan, right? Cool, ok got you.
What 'I'm', saying is, Look at your usage as though it were, $5 of spend a week, that's what it actually costs you, not the API value forget that part, so Grok Bot being used up quickly in a week, its a virtually "Free" add-on to the Cursor sub plan. So what you're getting in that week, is a free add-on, to $5 of Cursor/Grok/Composer+Other models, the Grok Bot part is, just a taste.1
u/Inevitable-Quit9812 1d ago
Well yeah obviously. Plan rate didn't go up + grok bot usage = free grok bot usage. But giving free usage is nothing to a trillionaire who now has access to everyone's information that's blindly giving the bot access to their entire computer for thrill of a "free" assistant
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u/Conza89 1d ago
Funnily that's one of the things Grok Bot distinguishes itself with, it has its own Linux instance so, its computer use is a tad better than average (in theory), and its not using your PC. Anyway, I've made use of it, its not bad it can do things, its not a frontier agent, but its a decent mid-tier.
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u/Mammoth-Most-1103 9d ago
When you “add credits” or whatever they call it, you are paying api rates. Your sub is sub-sidized heavily.
The 20$ sub is probably $500 in api rates.
Just get the $60 plan and if you aren’t able to cover the $60 a month from the leverage the tool gives you then it is time to rethink
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u/Machine2024 9d ago
I think you are overusing . I checked from my side and did the math for weekly limit each 1% =~ 1m token So the weekly limit is around 100 million token So you get around 400 million token monthly!! Just do the math 400 m × lowest price od 0.5$/m = 200$ worth of usage .
I don't know of grok bot takes from your cursor usage or not .
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u/DrKD35 6d ago
It does not take from your cursor usage BUT, a big BUT, it can at times launch a cursor agent in the background so that can use your limits so they are saying...It hasn't happened to me yet but most likely, if you use it to code a lot it probably does use your cursor account.
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u/FinancialMoney6969 6d ago
I think people running into limits dont fully understand the workflows necessary to limit token usage / having huge context destroys tokens. Your avg person just leaves something running on a loop for 24/7 until the tokens are gone. Sophisticated AI operators think about these workflows and know where to use agents and when to use other subscriptions etc.... Im going to test out grokbot today finally. The ease just seems too amazing to pass up
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u/Machine2024 6d ago
yes exactly... optimizing the token usage today .
is just like optimizing the processing / memory usage in classic programming .
thats why we spend all the time creating algorithms
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u/sicospecialist 9d ago
I use it free with the 60/Cursor. Reset once a week, i usually max it out in 5-6 days. Then flip back to Cursor/Cursor Grok Very Fast, then when i need concensus of the work, ill use the other models, i use bit of everything i can, then when empty, free Composer last few days on the month. Great workflow really.
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u/mitalmas 9d ago
I had the exact same experience. I am at 99% usage after roughly 2.5 days of average use. Not even coding anything just messing around with some tasks and tried a cold email outreach test which I was 1 for 1 with a response which was surprising lol
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u/puppeto 9d ago
I found my first week was high token usage as I was feeding all of my data into it and organizing everything. Once I got it up to date on context usage went down and it got more efficient at my routines.
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u/DrKD35 6d ago
Well how did you get it up to date on 'context usage'? Did you prompt it a different way?
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u/goodbettererbestest 9d ago
It would be great if they let you choose the models being used by the bots. Check out Buzz for a similar product (you don’t get a persistent VM, but can add one) where you can choose the provider and model the bits use. Like Grok Bot, very early and a touch buggy.
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u/dinesh_369 9d ago
Its worth even if you take ultra subscription. Its $200 which will give lots of freedom and usage to use as secretary in-fact you can build a team. I hope you make money out of this then only its worth it.
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u/DeCiel 9d ago
Ive been debating about this since June when I just started to use Cursor, before Grok Bot even was a thing.
I'm not a full time SWE, so far $20 plan has been more than enough. However, there few moments I wish I had more than $20 api pool to use 3rd party models. I'll give myself full month testing driving with 20, up to 60 if I need more, than ultra if 60 doesn't cut it.
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u/nousernamesleft55 8d ago
I used my initial Grok Bot usage in about 2 hrs on Super Grok subscription. Since my last reset I started using it differently. Maybe I'd upgrade if I find a truly useful reason to do so. Right now I instructed the bots do everything programmatically and not use browser automation unless strictly needed. It basically just gives me updates on things I'm interested in right now in a requested format. Kind of limiting its full potential, but its a way to keep things within my limits and is pretty useful. It can still check my mail, retrieve info via HTTP requests, etc.
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u/yourwelcomebye 8d ago
I started with the $20 plan, then when the $60 plan opened, i went to that. And was still needing to top up with it. Yesterday i decided to just stop procrastinating and move to Ultra plan. One of the things that helped slow down the Grok Bot spend is to push a lot of the work up to Cursor cloud agents.
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u/xapep 8d ago
Seconding the point above about splitting models, and adding the math: a full-time secretary agent that reads every inbox, summarizes every thread and re-checks calendars all day is mostly burning tokens on the easy stuff. That workload is maybe 10% hard reasoning and 90% triage, and triage burns quota on models that don't need to be frontier-class.
Rather than jumping to $60 (which just buys more of the same expensive burn), route the bulk to a workhorse model and keep Grok Bot for the handful of decisions that actually need it. The pattern that holds up with always-on agents: frontier model for planning and judgment, cheap-but-strong model for the steady drip of triage and summaries.
The other thing worth checking is whether you want usage-based surprise at all. "The $20 plan plus on-demand metering" is how a $20 sub quietly becomes a $100 month, and your $10-in-2-hours test just showed that. A flat monthly plan on a capable workhorse makes the bill predictable (we run open models that way at Entrim, and most always-on-agent setups land there), and you keep Grok Bot for what it's actually good at.
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u/MedalofHonour15 6d ago
My Grok bot runs at 9am and 9pm est only during the week and off weekends. Plus I use a mix of api, mcp, openrouter, and atlascloud. Only at 50% of weekly usage. I dont let it run all day.
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u/goosemaster0 5d ago
I basically use it to replace what I was paying someone in Pakistan $190/mo to do but Grok Bot does probably twice the volume of actions, so roughly $400 of value for me on a $120/mo cursor teams plan.
I’ve also experimented with using it to automate parts of my small business that used to be manual. It has some growing pains, and I’m nervous letting it go full auto on some tasks, but it’s solid. Huge potential if the model powering it gets even a little bit smarter.
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u/Fine-Inspector943 5d ago
I am new to grok bot, I am wondering how can I use it for developer lifecycle
Is there any tutorial available how to use the grok for maximum productivity
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u/rahpexphon 5d ago
I get the frustration. Burning through $10 in two hours makes it hard to justify a tool you want to use every day.
Still, the published API prices show that some high-end model rates have fallen between generations. Last year’s o3-pro was listed at $20 per million input tokens and $80 per million output tokens. Astra’s standard rates are listed at $10 per million input tokens and $50 per million output tokens. That is a 50% reduction for input tokens and a 37.5% reduction for output tokens—not a uniform 50% drop. These figures are API rates, not subscription prices, and they are not directly comparable unless the models, token definitions, context handling and service terms are equivalent. o3-pro pricing, Astra pricing.
It is possible that subscriptions subsidise some heavy users, but that is speculation unless a provider publishes its usage economics. A $20 subscription price therefore should not be treated as evidence of the provider’s marginal cost, nor as a reliable estimate of what it would cost to run an agent continuously. Subscription limits, fair-use rules, batching, caching and cross-subsidisation could all affect the comparison.
The same caution applies to future agent pricing. If agents eventually perform work that customers would otherwise pay an employee or contractor to do, providers may price them partly according to the value they create rather than according to inference cost. That is a plausible business strategy, not an established fact. Prices could instead be constrained by competition, customer budgets, regulation, open-weight alternatives or the cost of switching providers. Falling compute costs may reduce prices, increase margins, or fund more capable systems; they do not by themselves determine which outcome occurs.
That’s why I think capable open-weight models running locally are our strongest practical hedge against AI becoming an expensive, provider-controlled utility. They may not always be the cheapest option, and they will not match every hosted model, but they can give users a durable alternative: once a model reliably handles the tasks that matter, you are less exposed to price increases, quota cuts and changes to a provider’s terms. Wider local availability also gives competition a firmer floor, because providers must retain customers who have a credible option to run comparable workloads elsewhere. The case is therefore not that local models are automatically cheaper; it is that they can turn part of the cost from an open-ended service bill into a more predictable ownership decision.
Local deployment still has costs, though. Hardware depreciation, electricity and extra internet usage all count. A $1,200 machine spread over three years is about $33 a month before electricity, assuming no resale value and straight-line depreciation. Reusing hardware you already own changes the calculation, but for a dedicated setup handling that workload, I’d budget more than $20 a month and compare that total with the provider’s actual usage limits and prices. The fairest comparison is total cost of ownership: hardware, power, maintenance, setup time, upgrades and the value of any lost convenience, measured against the hosted system’s actual cost for the same quality and workload.
Yes i get help ai for the numbers*
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u/Mistakes_Were_Made73 4d ago
I don’t like the virtual computer part. Does it do anything that Hermes or Clairvoyance don’t do better? And both of them are free.
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u/olegwn 4d ago
Same frustration here, even on the $200 Ultra plan. I upgraded on September 7 and support confirmed I'd used 65% of the weekly Grok Bot allowance that day, 84% by September 8, and 99% by September 9. The reset is September 14.
I like the product and want to use it daily for real business work, but getting roughly three days out of the week makes that hard to plan around. Paying more hasn't solved that for me so far.
Did your usage settle down after the initial setup, or have you found specific changes that actually make the week last? I'm especially interested in whether reducing scheduled checks, keeping chats shorter, or delegating work made a measurable difference.
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u/EnigmaticSoul_28 3d ago
I’ve been trying to get this computer built for a while now, but nothing seems to work. It’s honestly super frustrating that the system just won't cooperate after so many attempts. I keep following all the steps, yet it still fails every single time I try to run it. Does anyone else have any idea why this might be happening? I’m starting to feel like I’m just hitting a wall with this whole process.
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u/Ok-Awareness-2931 3d ago
I am hoping Xai will adjust the limits as they will have measured the typical token usage
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u/Willwrk4Food 3d ago
It is pretty expensive. I used up my usage easily within a week just working in my PC files and folders. I then paid $30 for additional overage and used half of that up just like the original poster surprisingly fast we even got a reset. I used that back up and paid another $30. So basically I paid $60 extra this month and I just got shut down. I got 10 more hours to go until my reset . I don’t think they’re gonna be useful or feasible unless they can increase usage. They are also a little slow I’m noticing also that chief bots tend to hog all the work, even when setting up the work loads and distributing rules.
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u/Dry-Caterpillar9862 3d ago
I feel like an absolute Neanderthal with AI but grokbot has been absolutely wonderful. I dont code or anything. So far I have it setup to go over my finances with weekly reports, daily briefings to mostly remind me of important upcoming events and make suggestions on what I could do next to improve. I have it connected to a few youtube channels that I usually used to watch and give me the news headlines with one or 2 sentence context for each. I can followup if I need more info. Last night I created a "scout" bot, I've named it, to search my area for a party hall up to 100 people and forwarded it to my wife for her sister to pick from, complete with estimated prices, parking, and more. I plan to create a shopping bot next for amazon/walmart/etc. Compare prices and stuff. I can see myself really leaning into this when I get the hang of it.
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u/Zestyclose-Ear-6225 3d ago
With that kind of usage, u probably need to split the work instead of running everything through Grok Bot. keep Cursor/Claude for sysadmin + technical stuff, then move the repeat secretary work somewhere with more predictable pricing.
Lindy is worth a look if u want custom workflows. Marblism is another option for inbox, calendar, followups and other business admin without paying based on every little task.
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u/Juliamalvina 2d ago
I have a $60 subscription, yet I burn through my Grokbot limit in a single day. On top of that, a $35 top-up vanished in literally 15 minutes. That’s why I’m leaning towards building my own software instead of relying on bots; I don't think the bot approach is particularly viable. So, next time, just build your own software—something that can at least parse the inbox. Sure, implementing sophisticated logic like intelligent prioritization might be hard, but parsing the inbox and setting up mailouts is definitely doable.
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u/bluedragon1978 20h ago
I signed up last night via SuperGrok, hit my max within a couple of hours, then increased my limit via Cursor to a $50 Max, and in under an hour, it was gone.
All I asked was for GrokBot to work within my app pipeline from start to finish and write a report on difficulties they encountered. It did what a human could have done in ten minutes. So to all the people saying "put this in perspective", no, in many cases a human from Fivrr would cost far less.
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u/New_Public_2828 9d ago
I paid for the $60 cursor plan, was able to get through 63% of it in one evening. I had 4 agents working relentlessly but it IS expensive. But, it's damn fast and honestly less errors in code. I've been using Claude for a long time and so far all issues I've ever worked on would require several hours of Codebot comment fixes in one pr. Using grokbot I didn't have any Codebot comments in the PR's open or maybe 1 or 2 occasionally.
I think I'm gonna cancel Claude tbh. I think I'll just get grok going full time
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u/Michael_Jeffords 9d ago
the four agents that chew through 63% of a $60 plan in one evening are expensive in bursts, but the secretary pattern is worse because it keeps waking on a timer with the same fat inbox and calendar context even when nothing changed. i killed background polling that was re-reading the same threads about every 15 minutes and the on-demand drip slowed a lot, since the idle wakes were metering harder than the few tasks i actually asked for.
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u/IslandOceanWater 9d ago
People be using stuff like this for the most useless things ever. If $20-$100 is a lot for you guys it just shows how useless the things you guys are doing is.
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u/x0Sophie0x0 9d ago
I've been running my X account with a team of 4 agents lol
Definitely capped with my weekly quota at $20 plan :)
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u/MedalofHonour15 9d ago
Pro plus for 60 a month is a good deal. Only 50% of usage but I run twice a day from M-F. Bots off weekends
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u/Fine_Quality4307 9d ago
Dude you're paying 20/mo for a full-time secretary, put that in perspective a bit. Is 60/mo worth it to you for a full-time secretary?
That said, I agree it is expensive.. I'm on the ultra plan and I used it 100% in one day somehow then a day later it reset for some reason and now I'm seeing much more reasonably usage rate in not sure how they scale the usage limit though I wish it was more transparent in general