LLM·Dex
Newsletter

Grok 4 vs Qwen3-72B

A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.

Updated

Grok 4 specs · Qwen3-72B specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceGrok 4

    Grok 4 publishes pricing ($15.00 / 1M output tokens) while Qwen3-72B does not.

  • Context windowGrok 4

    Grok 4 accepts 256K tokens vs 128K, 2.0× the room for long documents and codebases.

  • BenchmarksTie

    No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores.

  • ModalitiesGrok 4

    Grok 4 supports 2 modalities (text, vision) vs 1 for Qwen3-72B.

  • OpennessQwen3-72B

    Qwen3-72B ships open weights (Apache-2.0); Grok 4 is API-only.

On balance Grok 4 edges ahead, winning 3 of 5 categories against Qwen3-72B's 1. Grok 4 publishes pricing ($15.00 / 1M output tokens) while Qwen3-72B does not. Grok 4 accepts 256K tokens vs 128K, 2.0× the room for long documents and codebases.

No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. They differ in modality coverage, Grok 4 handles text, vision while Qwen3-72B handles text, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Qwen3-72B ships open weights (Apache-2.0); Grok 4 is API-only.

Grok 4 is the newer of the two, released 2 months after Qwen3-72B, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Grok 4 is usually picked for reasoning and research agent workloads, while Qwen3-72B sees more deployments in open source llm and commercial use llm. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

SpecGrok 4Qwen3-72B
ProviderxAIAlibaba
ReleasedJul 2025Apr 2025
Modalitiestext, visiontext
Context window256K tokens128K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1M$3.00 / 1M tokensPricing not published
Output · 1M$15.00 / 1M tokensPricing not published
Knowledge cutoff2024-11,
Open weightsNoYes (Apache-2.0)
API availableYesYes

Pricing at scale

What you'd actually pay at typical workloads. Numbers come from each model's published per-million-token rates.

  • Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day$31.50 vs ,
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$315 vs ,
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$540 vs ,

Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates).

Price calculator

Estimated spend for the listed models at your usage. Numbers are derived from each model's published per-million-token rates.

  • Grok 4$1.05
  • Qwen3-72BPricing unavailable

Benchmarks compared

Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.

Grok 4Qwen3-72B
  • MMLU,84.0
  • GPQA87.5
Pick Grok 4 if

Grok 4 fits when…

  • Real-time X data access
  • Strong on benchmarks at launch
  • Less restrictive content policy than peers
  • Long-context tasks, handles 256K tokens vs 128K for Qwen3-72B.
  • Multimodal needs covering vision.
Pick Qwen3-72B if

Qwen3-72B fits when…

  • Apache-2.0 license
  • Strongest open-weight on Chinese
  • Strong multilingual coverage
  • Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (Apache-2.0).
Don't want either?

Consider Grok 3

xAI's first frontier-tier release, established the company's Colossus-trained model line.

See Grok 3 specsGrok 4 vs Grok 3Qwen3-72B vs Grok 3

Frequently asked

  • Is Grok 4 or Qwen3-72B cheaper?
    Per-token pricing isn't published for at least one of these models, check each model's spec page for current rates.
  • Which has the larger context window?
    Grok 4 accepts 256K tokens vs 128K for Qwen3-72B.
  • Is Grok 4 or Qwen3-72B better for coding?
    Both Grok 4 and Qwen3-72B are competitive on coding benchmarks. See each model's individual spec page for HumanEval and SWE-bench scores where published. For an opinionated pick, consult our Best LLM for Coding ranking.
  • Are either of these models open source?
    Qwen3-72B ships open weights (Apache-2.0). Grok 4 is API-only.
  • When were Grok 4 and Qwen3-72B released?
    Grok 4 was released by xAI on 2025-07-09. Qwen3-72B was released by Alibaba on 2025-04-29.
Friday digest

The week's AI launches, in your inbox.

One short email every Friday, new models, leaks, and quietly-shipped APIs you missed.