Which is cheaper, Grok 3 Mini or Phi-4?

Phi-4 is cheaper for both input ($0.07/M tokens) and output ($0.14/M tokens), compared to Grok 3 Mini at $0.30/$0.50 per million tokens.

Which is faster, Grok 3 Mini or Phi-4?

Phi-4 is faster at 160 tokens/sec with a TTFT of 100ms, compared to Grok 3 Mini at 110 tokens/sec and 180ms TTFT.

Which has a bigger context window, Grok 3 Mini or Phi-4?

Grok 3 Mini has a 128K token context window, which is larger Phi-4's 16K context window.

Which is better for coding, Grok 3 Mini or Phi-4?

Grok 3 Mini has a higher coding ELO of 1200 compared to Phi-4's 1130, making it the stronger choice for code generation and programming tasks.

Grok 3-mini vs Phi-4: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Name: Grok 3-mini vs Phi-4 — Pricing, Benchmarks & Speed Comparison 2026
Creator: LLMversus
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Pricing verified Sep 14, 2026By LLMversusUpdated September 17, 2026View methodology

⚡ Quick Answer

Phi-4 is significantly cheaper at $0.07/$0.14 per million tokens vs $0.30/$0.50. Grok 3 Mini is stronger for coding with a coding ELO of 1200 vs 1130. Phi-4 is faster at 160 tokens/sec vs 110 tokens/sec. Grok 3 Mini ranks higher overall with an Arena ELO of 1220 vs 1150. Grok 3 Mini offers a larger 128K context window vs 16K.

Updated: September 14, 2026 · ✓ Pricing verified

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	Grok 3-mini	Phi-4
Provider	xAI	Microsoft
Input Price / 1M tokens	$0.300	$0.070
Output Price / 1M tokens	$0.500	$0.140
Context Window	128K	16.384K
Max Output Tokens	4,096	4,096
Arena ELO	1,175	1,150
Coding ELO	1,190	1,130
TTFT (ms)	130	100
Tokens/sec	140	160
Multimodal	No	No
JSON Mode	Yes	Yes
Function Calling	Yes	No
Vision	No	No

When to Use Grok 3-mini

Choose Grok 3 Mini when you need: very affordable pricing, fast response times, good for simple tasks, reasoning capabilities at low cost. It excels at chatbots, cost-sensitive, lightweight-tasks tasks. Its 128K context window is larger, making it better for long-document processing.

Strengths:

Very cheap
Fast
Large context

Best for:

cost-effectivegeneral-purpose

When to Use Phi-4

Choose Phi-4 when you need: ultra-low cost for a capable model, strong math for its size (14b params), very fast inference, can run on consumer hardware. It excels at cost-sensitive, edge-deployment, math, lightweight-tasks tasks. It is also the more cost-effective option between the two.

Strengths:

Ultra-low cost for a capable model
Strong math for its size (14B params)
Very fast inference
Can run on consumer hardware

Best for:

cost-sensitiveedge-deploymentmathlightweight-tasks

Grok 3-mini vs Phi-4: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Side-by-Side Comparison

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Comparisons