Grok 4.6 vs DeepSeek-V4 Pro

Head-to-head technical comparison of intelligence, capabilities, and API pricing.

Grok 4.6
xAI
AI Mastery Index93.8
LMSYS Arena1470
Technical (MMLU-Pro)93.1%
Cost per 1M Tokens$2
DeepSeek-V4 Pro
DeepSeek
AI Mastery Index91.8
LMSYS Arena1449
Technical (MMLU-Pro)91.8%
Cost per 1M Tokens$1.32

Which should you use?

Grok 4.6 leads on the composite index by 2 points (93.8 vs 91.8).

Cost is the sharper difference: Grok 4.6 is 1.5x the input price of DeepSeek-V4 Pro ($2 against $1.32 per 1M), so at volume the choice is usually decided by budget rather than benchmarks.

Pick Grok 4.6 when

  • Higher composite index — 93.8 against 91.8, a gap of 2 points.
  • Ahead on Arena Elo by 21 points (1470 vs 1449), which is outside the board's published confidence intervals.
  • Stronger on MMLU-Pro: 93.1% against 91.8%.

Pick DeepSeek-V4 Pro when

  • Cheaper input tokens — $1.32 against $2 per 1M, so Grok 4.6 costs 1.5x as much to feed.
  • Better value per point of measured capability: $0.014 per index point against $0.021.

Value per point of measured capability, at list input pricing: DeepSeek-V4 Pro $0.014 · Grok 4.6 $0.021 per index point. Run your own token mix through the token cost calculator — a comparison at list price ignores caching and batch discounts, which move real bills more than this gap does.

Our reporting on xAI and DeepSeek