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Van Data Team

text model comparison

Gemini 4 Carbon vs Grok 4.6

Gemini 4 Carbon and Grok 4.6 are both current text models, from Google and xAI. Both cost $2 per 1M input tokens. On Arena Text, Gemini 4 Carbon scores 1526 Elo and Grok 4.6 1456 Elo (Arena, measured November 9, 2026). Gemini 4 Carbon has the larger context window, 1,048,576 vs 500,000 tokens.

Higher Arena Text
Gemini 4 Carbon1526 Elo against 1456 Elo
Longer context window
Gemini 4 Carbon1.05M tokens against 500K tokens
Newer release
Gemini 4 CarbonOct 2026 against Aug 2026

Data verified November 11, 2026 · Dataset 2026-11-11

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Side by side

Gemini 4 Carbon and Grok 4.6, line by line

Prices in effect today, compared at the same tier wherever both list one. The better value in each row is highlighted.

FactGemini 4 CarbonGrok 4.6
Price
Price per 1M input tokens$2$2
Price per 1M output tokens$10$6 (better)
Independent benchmarks
Arena Text1526 Elo (#1 of 48) (better)1456 Elo (#27 of 48)
Arena WebDev1768 Elo (#4 of 44) (better)1618 Elo (#22 of 44)
GPQA Diamond96.5% (#1 of 40) (better)94% (#12 of 40)
FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2)90.5% (#6 of 39) (better)66% (#26 of 39)
SimpleQA Verified77.7% (#2 of 36) (better)49.3% (#20 of 36)
Specs
ProviderGooglexAI
Release dateOctober 28, 2026August 12, 2026
AccessAPI onlyAPI only
Context window1,048,576 tokens500,000 tokens
Max output65,536 tokensNot reported
Inputtext, image, audio, videotext, image
Outputtexttext

Scores:Arena · 2026-11-11Epoch AI · 2026-11-11

Open both in the interactive comparison

Charts

Against every current text model

Where Gemini 4 Carbon and Grok 4.6 land among the current models of their task, on every independent benchmark, on price and on context.

Where each stands

On Arena Text, Gemini 4 Carbon ranks #1 and Grok 4.6 #27 of 48 current models. Each bar is the share of current models it beats: on score, price and context.

Gemini 4 Carbon and Grok 4.6 among the current text models, one row per benchmark, price and context window.

Independent benchmarks

Arena Text

Gemini 4 Carbon:#1of 48

1,526 Elo · ahead of 100%

Grok 4.6:#27of 48

1,456 Elo · ahead of 45%

Arena WebDev

Gemini 4 Carbon:#4of 44

1,768 Elo · ahead of 93%

Grok 4.6:#22of 44

1,618 Elo · ahead of 51%

GPQA Diamond

Gemini 4 Carbon:#1of 40

96.5% · ahead of 100%

Grok 4.6:#12of 40

94% · ahead of 72%

FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2)

Gemini 4 Carbon:#6of 39

90.5% · ahead of 87%

Grok 4.6:#26of 39

66% · ahead of 34%

SimpleQA Verified

Gemini 4 Carbon:#2of 36

77.7% · ahead of 97%

Grok 4.6:#20of 36

49.3% · ahead of 46%

Price and context

Price per 1M input tokens

Gemini 4 Carbon:#33of 57

$2 · cheaper than 23%

Grok 4.6:#33of 57

$2 · cheaper than 23%

Price per 1M output tokens

Gemini 4 Carbon:#38of 57

$10 · cheaper than 25%

Grok 4.6:#32of 57

$6 · cheaper than 39%

Context window

Gemini 4 Carbon:#12of 67

1.05M tokens · longer than 64%

Grok 4.6:#53of 67

500K tokens · longer than 18%

Scores fromArena · 2026-11-11Epoch AI · 2026-11-11

Quality against price

Arena Text · measured November 9, 2026

Gemini 4 Carbon scores 1,526 at $4; Grok 4.6 scores 1,456 at $3 (blended price per 1M tokens). The line joins the current models no other beats on both price and Arena Text score; hover any point to name it.

Quality against priceArena Text score against price for 40 text models, Gemini 4 Carbon and Grok 4.6 marked.1,2501,3001,3501,4001,4501,5001,550$0.30$1$3$10MOST ATTRACTIVE QUADRANTMedian price $2.08Median 1,472Blended price per 1M tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scaleArena Text (Elo)Gemini 4 CarbonGrok 4.6
Quality against price: the data
Arena Text score against price for 40 text models, Gemini 4 Carbon and Grok 4.6 marked.
ModelProviderBlended price per 1M tokensArena Text (Elo)
Gemini 4 CarbonGoogle$41,526
Gemini 4 ArgonGoogle$41,522
Muse WonderMeta$81,511
Claude Opus 5.5Anthropic$81,506
Gemini 3.8 FlashGoogle$1.501,497
Muse Spark 1.3Meta$21,496
Kimi K3Moonshot Kimi$61,487
GPT-5.6 SolOpenAI$81,485
Qwen3.8-MaxAlibaba Qwen$31,484
Gemini 3.6 FlashGoogle$31,483
GLM-5.3Z.ai$2.151,483
GPT-6.1 SolOpenAI$41,482
GPT-5.5OpenAI$111,481
MiMo-V2.6-ProXiaomi MiMo$0.541,480
GPT-5.4OpenAI$5.631,475
DeepSeek-V4.1-FlashDeepSeek$0.521,475
GPT-6 AstraOpenAI$201,474
GLM-5.3-FlashZ.ai$0.241,474
Gemini 3 Flash PreviewGoogle$1.131,473
Grok 4.20xAI$1.561,472
Claude Sonnet 5.5Anthropic$41,472
GPT-5.6 TerraOpenAI$4.501,468
Grok 4.5xAI$31,466
DeepSeek-V4-ProDeepSeek$1.981,464
GPT-6 SolOpenAI$41,457
Grok 4.6xAI$31,456
Gemini 3.5 Flash-LiteGoogle$0.851,455
GPT-5.6 LunaOpenAI$0.451,453
MiMo-V2.6-FlashXiaomi MiMo$0.181,448
Step 5 PreviewStepFun$1.431,448
Grok 4.3xAI$1.561,442
Grok 4.7xAI$31,442
GPT-6 LunaOpenAI$0.201,441
Mistral Large 4Mistral AI$1.051,423
Claude Haiku 5.5Anthropic$0.201,422
GPT-4.1OpenAI$3.501,415
Inkling 2 SmallThinking Machines Lab$0.471,412
Solar Pro 4Upstage$0.521,387
GPT-4.1 miniOpenAI$0.701,383
GPT-4.1 nanoOpenAI$0.181,322

Cost

What each costs

Example workloads at each provider's listed rates, then every other rate either one lists. The cheaper figure in each row is highlighted.

The same work, priced

For 10M input and 2M output tokens, Gemini 4 Carbon costs 1.3 times as much as Grok 4.6, at each provider's listed rates.

What Gemini 4 Carbon and Grok 4.6 cost for the same work, at the rates each provider lists.

  • 10M input and 2M output tokens

    Gemini 4 Carbon costs 1.3× as much

    Gemini 4 Carbon
    $40
    Grok 4.6
    $32

  • The same, with 9M of the input tokens cached

    Gemini 4 Carbon costs 1.2× as much

    Gemini 4 Carbon
    $22.90
    Grok 4.6
    $18.50
Workload or rateGemini 4 CarbonGrok 4.6
Example workloads
10M input and 2M output tokens$40$32 (better)
The same, with 9M of the input tokens cached$22.90$18.50 (better)
The same, through the batch API$20Not listed
Other listed rates
1M input tokens, cached$0.10 (better)$0.50
1M input tokens, batch$1Not listed
1M output tokens, batch$5Not listed

Your own bill will differ. These figures use list prices and example workloads. The AI Model Cost Audit reviews your real usage, shortlists models that score as well for each task for less, and estimates the savings.

Launch price $100, regular price $150

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Verdict

When to choose each

Gemini 4 Carbon

Where it leads

  • Higher Arena Text score, 1526 Elo vs 1456 Elo
  • Higher Arena WebDev score, 1768 Elo vs 1618 Elo
  • Higher GPQA Diamond score, 96.5% vs 94%
  • Higher FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2) score, 90.5% vs 66%
  • Higher SimpleQA Verified score, 77.7% vs 49.3%
  • Larger context window 1,048,576 vs 500,000 tokens
  • Accepts audio and video input
  • Cheaper cached input, $0.10 vs $0.50 per 1M tokens

Best for

  • Finding, validating and patching vulnerabilities
  • Long-horizon engineering and research over very long inputs

Watch out for

  • Generally available in the Gemini API since November 10, 2026, on the paid tier only (there is no free tier), after two weeks open only to cyber defenders in its Fairwind Program
  • The $2 and $10 rates are introductory and end on November 30, 2026: from December 1, input, output and cached input double, to $4, $20 and $0.20 per 1M tokens (Batch from $1 and $5 to $2 and $10)
  • In Google's own table it trails GPT-6 Astra on FrontierSWE 2 (61.2% against 65.5%) and Claude Opus 5.5 on OSWorld-2.1 (81.5% against 87.2%)
  • A request returns at most 65,536 output tokens by default; longer outputs, up to 1,048,576 tokens, need Google long-decode mode
Full Gemini 4 Carbon profile

Grok 4.6

Where it leads

  • Lower price per 1M output tokens, $6 vs $10

Best for

  • Coding, agentic, and knowledge-work API evaluations with controlled long-context cost

Watch out for

  • Published token rates increase for all tokens in a request once its prompt reaches xAI's 200,000-token long-context threshold
Full Grok 4.6 profile

From benchmark to production

Building on Gemini 4 Carbon or Grok 4.6?

Public scores rarely hold on your own data. We test both models on your real tasks, then build the agent or pipeline around the one that wins.

AI Model Cost AuditLaunch price $100, regular price $150What the audit includes

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FAQ

Gemini 4 Carbon vs Grok 4.6 FAQ

Which is cheaper, Gemini 4 Carbon or Grok 4.6?

Both cost $2 per 1M input tokens. For 10M input and 2M output tokens, Gemini 4 Carbon costs $40 and Grok 4.6 $32 at standard rates.

Which is cheaper with prompt caching, Gemini 4 Carbon or Grok 4.6?

Gemini 4 Carbon charges $0.10 per 1M cached input tokens, 95% below its standard input rate, and Grok 4.6 $0.50, 75% below. With 9M of 10M input tokens cached and 2M output tokens, Gemini 4 Carbon costs $22.90 and Grok 4.6 $18.50.

Which scores higher on independent benchmarks, Gemini 4 Carbon or Grok 4.6?

Gemini 4 Carbon leads on Arena Text, 1526 Elo to 1456 Elo; Gemini 4 Carbon leads on Arena WebDev, 1768 Elo to 1618 Elo; Gemini 4 Carbon leads on GPQA Diamond, 96.5% to 94%. Scores are independent evaluations, not either vendor's launch figures.

Which has the larger context window, Gemini 4 Carbon or Grok 4.6?

Gemini 4 Carbon has the larger context window, 1,048,576 vs 500,000 tokens.

How do Gemini 4 Carbon and Grok 4.6 differ in features?

Gemini 4 Carbon takes text, image, audio and video input; Grok 4.6 takes text and image.

Further reading

More on Gemini 4 Carbon and Grok 4.6

Articles on Gemini 4 Carbon and Grok 4.6

Related comparisons

Production evaluation

Choosing between Gemini 4 Carbon and Grok 4.6?

Public benchmarks narrow the shortlist. We run both on your own tasks, data and cost limits, then build the routing and review controls to run the winner in production.

  • A head-to-head evaluation on your real workload
  • Routing between models by cost and difficulty
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