Grok 4.6 Paid vs 
Seed 1.6 Paid
Grok 4.6 vs Seed 1.6 compared — price per token, context window, multimodality, openness and which to choose. Full 2026 breakdown.
Grok 4.6 — full profile › · Seed 1.6 — full profile ›
Prices & specs refreshed from live data · olud.ai
Open-model prices = cheapest provider via OpenRouter; official maker rates may be higher.
$6 /M outputManaged API (no infra to run)
$2 /M outputManaged API (no infra to run)
Grok 4.6 vs Seed 1.6 specs
| Spec | Grok 4.6 | Seed 1.6 | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maker | xAI | ByteDance Seed | – |
| Type | Proprietary | Proprietary | – |
| Context window | 500K tokens | 262K tokens | |
| Input price | $2/M | $0.25/M | |
| Output price | $6/M | $2/M | |
| Vision / multimodal | Yes | Yes | = Tie |
| Tool / function calling | Yes | Yes | = Tie |
| Self-hostable | No (API only) | No (API only) | – |
| License | Proprietary | Proprietary | – |
Price gap & when to choose each
Seed 1.6 is ~3.0× cheaper than Grok 4.6 on output tokens ($2 vs $6 per M tokens).
- You want frontier performance through a managed API
- You need the longer 500K context window
- You value reliability & ecosystem
- You don't want to manage infrastructure
- You want frontier performance through a managed API
- You want the lower output price
- You value reliability & ecosystem
- You don't want to manage infrastructure
Feature comparison
| Capability | Grok 4.6 | Seed 1.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Open weights (downloadable) | ✗ | ✗ |
| Self-hostable | ✗ | ✗ |
| Runs fully offline | ✗ | ✗ |
| Vision / multimodal | ✓ | ✓ |
| Tool / function calling | ✓ | ✓ |
| 1M+ context window | ✗ | ✗ |
Benchmarks: Grok 4.6 vs Seed 1.6
Independent benchmark scores measured by Artificial Analysis. Higher is better (except latency).
Benchmark data by Artificial Analysis.
How Grok 4.6 and Seed 1.6 score
| Criterion | Grok 4.6 | Seed 1.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Cost-efficiency | 4.0 | 4.5 |
| Context window | 4.5 | 4.0 |
| Openness | 1.5 | 1.5 |
| Self-hosting | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| Multimodality | 5.0 | 5.0 |
Scores come from live data — output price (cost), context length, open vs closed weights (openness & self-hosting) and vision/tool support (multimodality). Raw task quality isn't scored here; it depends on your benchmark — see the verdict.
What each model is
Grok 4.6 Paid
Grok 4.6 is SpaceXAI's smartest model with frontier performance on coding, knowledge work, and STEM.
Seed 1.6 Paid
Seed 1.6 is a general-purpose model released by the ByteDance Seed team. It incorporates multimodal capabilities and adaptive deep thinking with a 256K context window.
Other models in these families
These variants are tracked but not compared here — one page per family keeps the comparison readable.
Frequently asked questions
Grok 4.6 vs Seed 1.6 — which is cheaper?
Seed 1.6 is cheaper on output ($2/M vs $6/M).
Which has the larger context window?
Grok 4.6 offers the larger context window (500K tokens).
Grok 4.6 vs Seed 1.6 — which should I pick in 2026?
Choose Seed 1.6 for the lower output price ($2/M vs $6/M). Choose Grok 4.6 if you need the larger 500K context window.
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