Since 12 October 2026, every new paid Grok plan is also an X Premium and Cursor subscription, and video needs the $30 one. That is the newest reason people look elsewhere. The older one is trust: in January Grok's image tool was used to undress real people's photos, and in July xAI's coding tool was found uploading whole folders to its servers.
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Stay on Grok if you already pay for X Premium or Cursor, because the $30 Premium plan now covers what xAI says used to cost $90 a month across SuperGrok, Cursor Pro and X Premium+.
checked 2026-10-13 · Grok is Sold as The X Subscription since 12 Oct 2026 (Grok, Grok Bot, Cursor and X Premium in one plan): Free $0, Plus $8/mo, Premium $30/mo (4x Plus usage), Super $100/mo (15x), Ultra $200/mo (50x). Video, Grok Bot and the latest Grok models start at Premium. One weekly usage pool shared across Grok and Cursor. Existing SuperGrok and X Premium subscribers keep their old plans until they switch. · by dan scutaru
better: Sold on its own, with nothing else on the bill. The free plan has unlimited text chats, subject to abuse guardrails, where Grok's free chat is marked Limited with no number. Go is $8, Plus is $20 with no ads, and Codex, OpenAI's coding agent, comes with every plan.
you give up: Free and Go may show ads. Your chats train OpenAI's models until you switch that off, exactly as on Grok. The pricing page lists no video generation on any plan.
better: The free plan includes web search, memory, file creation and up to 5 projects. Pro is $20 and includes Claude Code, so coding comes without a second subscription.
you give up: No images and no video: Anthropic says Claude does not generate photos or illustrations. The free plan runs Sonnet and Haiku only. Since October 2025 your chats can train Anthropic's models unless you opt out.
better: Built around search, with numbered citations on every answer so you can check the claim. Pro is $20 on its own and includes image and video generation and a choice of models.
you give up: The free plan is thin: 3 Pro Searches a day, 1 Research query a month, no image generation and no model choice. Pro's limits are published only as weekly limits for average use, and the training opt-out is listed for paid plans.
better: Google AI Plus is $4.99 a month and adds video generation in the Gemini app, plus 200 credits for Flow, Google's AI creative studio for video. The free plan already generates and edits images and runs Deep Research.
you give up: No video on the free plan, and Google gives no video count for Plus, only 2x the free limits. Keep Activity is on by default, and Google's reviewers read a sample of chats and keep them up to three years.
better: A dedicated video generator on the web, phones and desktop. People without a plan can claim a monthly grant of free credits, and Standard lists at $10 a month, a third of Grok Premium.
you give up: Free clips are 720p, watermarked and not licensed for commercial use, and Kling does not say how many free credits you get. It is a video studio, not an assistant, so you still need a chatbot for everything else.
better: Images and video in one subscription from $10 a month, with commercial use allowed on every paid plan. Unlimited image generation in Relax mode starts at the $30 Standard plan.
you give up: No free plan and no trial on the website. Everything you make is public unless you pay $60 for Pro, which unlocks Stealth mode. Basic renders video in SD only, with 200 minutes of fast GPU time a month.
better: From Proton, the Geneva company behind Proton Mail. It keeps no logs of your chats, stores them with zero-access encryption, never trains on them, and its code is open source. A guest mode needs no account, and it searches the web and makes images.
you give up: Proton does not name the models it runs, and the free plan caps messages, chat history and use of its Max model without giving numbers. No video. Plus is $12.99 a month, or $9.99 billed yearly.
better: Free, with no account. DuckDuckGo strips your IP address before a prompt reaches the model, the providers agree to delete prompts after replying and not to train on them, and chats are saved only on your device by default.
you give up: The free models are the lighter ones, such as Claude Haiku 4.5 and GPT-5.4 mini. Bigger ones need a $9.99 a month subscription bundled with a VPN. The daily limit has no number, and the privacy rests on agreements with the providers: Anthropic may still keep chats where the law requires it.
For video, the cheapest move is Google AI Plus at $4.99, which adds video generation to Gemini. Kling is the dedicated option, free to try with watermarked 720p clips, and Midjourney sells images and video together from $10. On Grok, video starts at Premium, $30, and the $8 Plus plan has none.
For still images you need not pay at all: Gemini's and ChatGPT's free plans both make images, within limits. If Imagine's content filter is why you are leaving, expect filters here too. We do not list apps that sell themselves on skipping moderation.
Claude is the pick people weigh most after ChatGPT, and it is the narrower tool. It writes, reads files, searches the web and codes, but it makes no images and no video. Grok's free plan makes images, and its video starts at $30.
On price, Claude Pro is $20 with Claude Code included. Grok's $8 Plus runs only Grok models in Cursor, and Claude inside Cursor is billed on top at API list prices from the $30 plan. Neither publishes hard limits: Claude uses a five-hour window plus a weekly cap on paid plans, Grok a weekly pool shared with Cursor.
For plain chat, ChatGPT Free is the most generous: unlimited text chats under abuse guardrails, though it may show ads. Duck.ai is free with no account at all. Gemini's free plan adds image generation and Deep Research, and Perplexity's free plan gives 3 cited Pro Searches a day.
Free video is the hard part. Kling gives people without a plan a monthly credit grant, with watermarked 720p output, and no other pick here makes video for free. Grok's own free plan still exists, with limited chat, images and Grok Build, and no published number for any of it.
Cancel first. On The X Subscription, open Billing & invoices on your grok.com dashboard and cancel from the current plan card; you keep the benefits until the billing period ends. An older SuperGrok plan sits under Settings, Billing on grok.com. If you paid through Apple, Google Play or X, cancel there: cancelling on grok.com does not stop an Apple-billed subscription.
Then delete the account at accounts.x.ai. xAI lets you restore it within 30 days by logging back in, and API access on the same account goes with it. If you switched to The X Subscription, your Grok and Cursor accounts are now one account, so check what else lives in it first.
Yes, there is a free plan with limited chat, image generation and Grok Build, and xAI publishes no number for the limits. Video, Grok Bot and the latest Grok models start at Premium, $30 a month. The full answer →
For images and video on a budget, yes: Google AI Plus adds video for $4.99 a month, while Grok's video starts at $30. Gemini's free plan also includes Deep Research and image editing. Grok is the better pick if you want answers that search live X posts.
For research, yes. Every Perplexity answer carries numbered citations, and Pro at $20 includes image and video generation with nothing else bundled. Its free plan is thinner than Grok's, with 3 Pro Searches a day and no image generation.
For plain chat it is the easier replacement: unlimited free text chats, an $8 Go plan and a $20 Plus plan with no social network or code editor attached. Grok is the better deal only if you would use video, Cursor and X Premium together at $30.