Grok 3 Mini
xAI's compact Grok with a 1M-token context window, real-time X data access, and surprisingly strong reasoning at the cheapest price on Renas AI — 0.003 credits per word.
Model Specs
- Released
- Feb 2025
- Context window
- 1.0M tokens
- Capabilities
- fast-inferencereal-time-datalong-contextcost-efficient
- Modalities
- textvision
About this model
Grok 3 Mini is xAI's compact and most affordable Grok model, released on February 19, 2025 alongside the flagship Grok 3. It shares the family's defining advantages — a 1,000,000-token context window and real-time X (Twitter) data access — but at a fraction of the cost. On Renas AI, Grok 3 Mini costs 0.003 credits per word, making it the cheapest text model available on the platform: about 3x cheaper than GPT-5 Mini and 8x cheaper than Claude Haiku 4.5.
Despite the budget pricing, Grok 3 Mini is genuinely competitive on reasoning. xAI's announcement reports 95.8% on AIME 2024 (math olympiad) and 80.4% on LiveCodeBench (recent coding problems) — numbers that overlap with mid-tier flagship models. The Think mode (extended thinking) extracts the best performance out of the smaller backbone, so for math and code problems, Mini punches above its weight.
The right use case is **scale**. If you're running high-volume chat workflows, customer support bots, or content pipelines where per-word cost compounds, Grok 3 Mini's 0.003 cred/word means a 10,000-credit Spark plan covers ~3.3 million words of output per month. That's roughly 7x more output per credit than GPT-5 Mini. The trade-off is benchmark coverage: xAI publishes specific numbers for AIME and LiveCodeBench but not for GPQA or MMLU, and the Mini's overall capability is below the flagship Grok 3 on hard reasoning. For everyday writing, summarization, and chat, Mini is more than enough; for the absolute hardest problems, step up.
Key Strengths
Cheapest text model on Renas AI
0.003 credits per word — about 3x cheaper than GPT-5 Mini (0.01) and 8x cheaper than Claude Haiku 4.5 (0.025). For high-volume workflows, the cost difference compounds dramatically over the month.
1M-token context — same as flagship Grok 3
Mini doesn't sacrifice context length — same 1M token window as the flagship. Useful when you have a long document or codebase but don't need top-tier reasoning.
Real-time X (Twitter) data access
Same xAI advantage as Grok 3 flagship — direct integration with X data for current events, trending topics, and live discussions. No separate web-scraping or RSS pipeline needed.
Strong on math and code despite the budget tier
AIME 2024 95.8% and LiveCodeBench 80.4% — competitive with much more expensive mid-tier flagship models. Math tutoring and routine coding work fit comfortably within Mini's capability.
Think mode for harder problems
Extended thinking is available — when Mini hits its limits, enabling Think mode often pushes it across the line. Useful for occasional hard problems within otherwise routine workflows.
Native vision input
Multimodal text + image input at no extra cost. Same vision capability as Grok 3 flagship.
Benchmarks
How it compares
Grok 3 Mini is the cost leader at 0.003 credits per word — cheapest text model on Renas. The right comparison depends on whether you specifically need real-time X data and reasoning quality.
| vs. Model | Verdict | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Grok 3 | Flagship Grok 3 has higher reasoning benchmarks (GPQA Diamond 84.6%, AIME 2025 93.3% — Mini's AIME is on 2024 data so direct comparison is imperfect). Same 1M context and real-time data. Mini is ~23x cheaper. Use Mini for routine work; flagship for hardest reasoning where the cost is justified. | Wins most cases |
| GPT-5 Mini | GPT-5 Mini is 3x more expensive than Grok 3 Mini (0.01 vs 0.003 cred/word) but has stronger structured-output reliability and OpenAI ecosystem alignment. Grok wins on cost, context length (1M vs 400K), and real-time X data. Pick Grok Mini for cost-sensitive workflows and current events; GPT-5 Mini for production agents where structured output reliability matters. | Wins most cases |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | Haiku 4.5 is 8x more expensive than Grok 3 Mini (0.025 vs 0.003) but has Anthropic's polished writing voice and stronger SWE-bench scores. For long-form editorial output, Haiku wins; for high-volume chat, support bots, and cost-sensitive drafting, Grok Mini is the budget leader. | Wins most cases |
Pros
- Cheapest text model on Renas AI (0.003 credits per word)
- 1M-token context window — same as flagship Grok 3
- Real-time X (Twitter) data access for current events
- Strong AIME 2024 (95.8%) and LiveCodeBench (80.4%) for the budget tier
- Think mode available for harder problems
- Native vision input at no extra cost
Things to consider
- No published GPQA or MMLU scores from xAI for Mini specifically
- Lower overall capability than flagship models on hardest reasoning tasks
- X-data source bias — reflects what's discussed on the platform, not all of the internet
- Less prompt-engineering literature than GPT/Claude families
- Knowledge cutoff varies by training source — verify current claims via real-time data feature
Best use cases
High-volume customer support bots
Routine customer questions answered at minimum per-response cost. With 0.003 cred/word, you can handle thousands of interactions per day on a normal credit budget.
Content drafting at massive scale
Bulk article generation, product description writing, social media post drafting. The price advantage means high-volume workflows that would be expensive on flagship models become economical.
Math tutoring and homework help
AIME 2024 95.8% means Mini handles math olympiad-level problems competently. For routine math help, calculus walk-throughs, and quantitative reasoning, Mini is sufficient and substantially cheaper than alternatives.
Routine code generation
LiveCodeBench 80.4% — solid on contemporary coding problems. Pair programming on routine tasks, simple bug fixes, code review for non-critical projects.
Current-events monitoring at scale
Brand monitoring across thousands of X posts, trend tracking, sentiment analysis. Mini's real-time data access works the same as flagship Grok at a fraction of the cost.
Document summarization workflows
Large document libraries summarized in batch — leveraging the 1M context window without paying flagship per-word rates.
How to use it on Renas AI
- 1
Step 1
Pick the surface that fits the task
Grok 3 Mini is available in AI Chat, Blog Wizard, AI Editor, and the WordPress plugin on Renas AI. For high-volume work, AI Chat with Personas is often the right surface; for content drafting, Blog Wizard.
- 2
Step 2
Switch from the default Sonnet 4.5
Sonnet 4.5 is the Renas chat default. Switch to Grok 3 Mini in the model picker when (a) cost matters more than the marginal quality difference, (b) you need real-time X data, or (c) you're running high-volume workflows where 0.003 vs 0.07 cred/word changes your budget meaningfully.
- 3
Step 3
Provide context and constraints
Same prompting style as the flagship — paste documents, describe the task, list constraints. The 1M context fits almost any input; the budget pricing rewards iterating freely with multiple prompt variations.
- 4
Step 4
Promote critical work to flagship Grok 3
When Mini produces output that's almost-but-not-quite right on hard problems, regenerate the same prompt on flagship Grok 3 (or GPT-5.2 / Sonnet 4.5). Two-stage workflow: Mini for exploration and bulk, flagship for the final polish.
Pricing
Pricing on Renas AI
Pay-as-you-go credits, no API keys, no rate limits.
~3,333,333 words on a 10,000-credit Spark plan
Frequently asked questions
Other text models on Renas AI
The cheapest AI text model on Renas
Use Grok 3 Mini with your Renas AI subscription credits — no API key, no setup, no per-seat fees.
Try Grok 3 Mini