How to Use Grok: A 10-Minute Course to Try It Free and Pick a Plan
Start by asking three questions to see whether "it's right for me." Just copy and paste them as they are.
Sign up at x.ai/grok with your X account or a Grok website account. You can use it on the web and in the iOS and Android apps.
Sort recent reactions on X to [product name] into positive and negative, and summarize them along with the types of posts that support each.
Run a deep search on [topic] and make a comparison table organized by source. Mark anything you're not sure about separately.
Give it something you actually have to do today, such as an email draft, organizing materials, or a calculation, exactly as it is. Do not enter personal information or company confidential information.
Pay attention to when the limit notice appears. If you get blocked after just a few questions, the free plan is only right for a taste.
Frequently asked questions
A little more detail
What kind of tool is Grok, and who is it right for?
The short answer: it's the star for people who want to ask about the reactions circulating on X right now. Grok is a conversational AI made by xAI, which was founded by Elon Musk. It differs from ChatGPT and Claude in one respect: it pulls real-time posts from the X platform in as source material for its answers. It suits questions about news, public opinion, and topics that have just appeared.
On our AI Galaxy Map, Grok-2 is registered in the 'foundation model' cluster, in the language model orbit. Its registered features include X real-time data integration, a humorous conversation style, and image generation. However, this record is as of 2026-03-18, so it may differ from the latest model today. You can see its classification on the map on the Grok-2 introduction page.
People who fit well are marketers, journalists, and those interested in investing who need to read market reactions quickly, as well as people who want to casually make images or short videos.
What is each main feature used for, and how do the results differ when you give them the same task?
Just use different features for different jobs. Real-time search is for questions where timing matters, such as "how are people reacting to this product today?" DeepSearch is an in-depth research feature that goes around the web, gathers material, and bundles it into a report, and Think mode is a reasoning feature that works through math or coding problems step by step. Remember it as DeepSearch for research and Think for problem solving.
Text-to-speech (TTS) reads the answer aloud in one of 5 voices. Images and videos are made in Imagine, and switching to video mode produces 3–5 second clips. It is said that Extend from Frame, which attaches a continuation from the last frame, can extend them to 15 seconds or more. For images, the more you pack the subject, background, mood, and composition into a single sentence, the closer you get to the result you want.
Say you want to know the reputation of "newly released earphones." A regular chat reads the reaction briefly from recent posts on X, DeepSearch makes a comparison table that gathers price, features, and reviews, and Think suits calculations like "break-even quantity at a discount." This is a way of using it based on the feature descriptions, not a result I ran myself.
How far can you go for free, and how do the plans differ?
It's safest to treat the free plan as a "stage for tasting whether it fits my work." Once you create an account, basic conversation and light trials are available. However, the sources I referred to largely agree that the free limit is short. Namuwiki compiles complaints that the limit notice appears after only a few questions, and it also says that the limits and range of features have shrunk since early 2026.
According to the Carrot blog (2026), the plans are divided as follows. Free offers basic conversation and light trials. SuperGrok Lite ($10) has sessions twice as long as free and can generate 480p video, but cannot use the Grok 4 model. SuperGrok ($30) opens DeepSearch, Think mode, and Grok 4. SuperGrok Ultra ($300) uses Grok 4 Heavy, in which up to 3 agents split up and handle the work.
There are two places where people get confused. By its name, Lite looks like a scaled-down SuperGrok, but it lacks advanced features such as DeepSearch and Think. Also, Namuwiki lists SuperGrok at $30 per month and $300 per year, so the '300' is easily mixed up with the Ultra monthly price. For comparison, the same document says that as of 2025, ChatGPT Plus and Claude Pro are $20 per month. Before paying, the numbers on the official page x.ai/grok take priority.
What drawbacks should I know about before trying it?
Know about three things going in: limits, safety controversies, and conflicting information. The first is limits. Namuwiki records complaints that even paid users ran into usage notices. If you plan to use it for work every day, it's easier on your mind to start while expecting that your flow may be interrupted.
The second is safety controversies. The same document compiles an account that, due to a mistaken system prompt change in July 2025, inappropriate responses were exposed for about 16 hours, and that in January 2026 some countries blocked access over deepfake issues surrounding the image feature. It also says that censorship was tightened afterward, so results differ from the past. Since this is a wiki's description, check official reports or announcements as well before making important decisions.
The third is conflicting information. The reference articles describe the latest model inconsistently, as Grok 4, 4.2, or 4.7, and some of it does not match the present. Check model names and features yourself on the app's model selection screen. Also, do not enter personal information, company confidential information, or manuscripts with copyright concerns, and it is right to avoid creating images of real people as well.
If Grok isn't a good fit, what alternatives should I look at?
If you don't need real-time news, a general-purpose chatbot is lighter on monthly cost. If your focus is writing documents or assisting with everyday work, Namuwiki says tools like ChatGPT or Claude are $20 per month as of 2025, $10 lower than SuperGrok ($30). On the other hand, if you want to make images and videos in one place, Grok's Imagine is worth trying.
Beyond that, an X Premium subscription is mentioned as a cheaper alternative, but you need to check separately on X's own page which features are included. Check the classification and registered features at Grok-2 introduction, and compare the current plans against the official site x.ai/grok.
This article is a compilation of official guides, external introductory articles, and wiki descriptions, and it is not a hands-on review. So the most reliable way to judge is to run the 10-minute course above once with your own questions.
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