It’s time to try out
Grok Build, Groks answer to Claude Code.
I currently am paying for Super Grok.
I believe this gives me access to Grok Build as part of my plan, though
it may throttle me from time to time. I
could pay per token… but for now I do not think I need that.
Quick look at pricing
I am paying $300/year for Super Grok. The closest monthly plan Claude would have is Pro at $200/year.
Looking at the API pricing
Grok Build pricing https://docs.x.ai/developers/pricing [1] or looking at Models https://docs.x.ai/developers/models [2]
For 1M token input $2.00 and for 1M token Output $6 (for Grok 4.5)
From what I am hearing
Grok 4.5 might be equal to Claude Opus 4.8.
If that is the case https://claude.com/pricing#api [3]
So, if that is true, we
are taking 60-76% cheaper? … Time will
tell if that is true or not…
Installing
Installation is easy and a few ways are shown on the x cli web site https://x.ai/cli [4]
I am installing this on ubuntu so I will choose the WSL install
|
> curl -fsSL https://x.ai/cli/install.sh | bash |
Let me check the version
|
> grok --version |
OK, how do I update it? I should not need to update it now but in a week or two I imagine I will.
|
> grok update |
That was simple enough.
Start it up
Let me move to the /tmp folder just to be safe and start it up
|
> cd /tmp |
OK since this is my
first time I need to connect it to my account.
I get a KEY and it
opened a web browser
Key has been placed in
it. Just click Continue.
OK from here just choose
how you want to login
After a few steps my
Device has been authorized!
Press ctrl+q once or twice to exit the setup.
OK now I am back at the
command line..
Guess that was just a one time set up and I need to start it again.
|
> grok |
Nope… never mind I was wrong… Me taking pics took too long so it did not authorize.
This is what you should
see
Now let me try a simple prompt
|
> What is the temperature in Tokyo? |
OK asking permission,
very much like Claude Code
Got the answer
And it even created a
simple html page and opened it in a browser
Some fiddling
Its installed its
working. I don’t want to go too far into
any other subject in this doc. But I do
want to fiddle a little bit.
Making sure I am using the latest model
How do I know what model
I am using?
Its right there in the prompt section on the lower right.
|
> /m |
You will get a pull down to choose from, press enter to choose
Then choose effort.
You could also set it in
the ~/.grok/config.toml file
|
> vi ~/.grok/config.toml |
In the [models] section
you can set the default that grok will auto start in.
Scrollable answer section
Oh! I like this it has a nice scrollable
answer/working section. The
question/command remains on the top and I can use the mouse scroll to scroll
up/down the output. That is an issue in
Claude Code. I imagine Claude will adopt
this idea soon enough.
/cost
What about the /cost command?
|
> /cost show |
I can see that I have used 1% of my weekly limit. And it will reset on July 15th. A Wednesday.
Poking around it looks
like if you use up your weekly limit you can pay for credits. Also it appears that when you weekly limit
resets the following week it will use your new weekly limit before it every
uses your credits.
I like that, as a home user.
OK enough for this
article we have Grok Build running let’s see what it can do.
References
[1] Grok Build Pricing
https://docs.x.ai/developers/pricing
Accessed 07/2026
[2] Models
https://docs.x.ai/developers/models
Accessed 07/2026
[3] Claude Pricing API
https://claude.com/pricing#api
Accessed 07/2026
[4] X CLI Bring Grok into your
terminal
https://x.ai/cli
Accessed 07/2026
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