Is Grok Imagine No Longer Free? Pricing Changes Explained (2026)
Short answer
Yes, Grok Imagine's free tier now uses a credit system.
Free users receive a limited daily credit allocation — roughly 5 credits per day, refilled at midnight UTC.
SuperGrok Lite and SuperGrok unlock more credits per day, at around $10 and $30 per month respectively.
→ Or use X Imagine AI: same class of model, no daily credit limits and no midnight reset to wait for.
No credits required
Out of Grok Credits? Generate Right Here Instead
Paste the prompt you were about to run below. No daily pool, no midnight countdown — pick up exactly where Grok Imagine stopped you.
Examples
Configure generation parameters to initialize
Image Remix
Remix a source image into a vivid creative direction with bold visual energy.
Bold Visual Idea
A playful high-contrast image with dynamic composition and social-ready framing.
Tokyo Character Poster
A precise poster-style character composition with cyberpunk detail and strong vertical layout.
Hero Fusion Edit
Turn a character reference into a glowing mythic hero portrait with cloud-like energy.
Anime Lighting Pass
Enhance an anime-style scene with cinematic lighting, bloom, and expressive detail.
Expressive Anime Duo
A cinematic anime-style character scene with expressive eyes and glowing volumetric light.
No daily pool, no reset clock
Your balance doesn't zero out at midnight and unused credits aren't wiped. Generate on your own schedule.
One balance, multiple models
The same credits cover image generation plus Kling, Veo and Seedance for video — no separate subscription per model.
No X account, no subscription
Every Grok tier requires an X account and the larger pools require a monthly charge. This needs neither.
Fact check
What Actually Changed With Grok Imagine?
Grok Imagine wasn't switched off for free users, and it isn't fully behind a paywall. What changed is how usage is measured. Three shifts explain most of the confusion.
1. From a fixed image count to credits
The free tier used to mean a set number of images per day. It now draws from a shared credit pool instead — image or video, standard or high-resolution, all from the same balance. Under the old system you knew exactly how many pictures were left; under credits, the same allowance can vanish in two or three generations depending on what you ask for.
2. The free daily allocation is smaller
Free accounts still get credits every day — currently around 5, resetting at midnight UTC — but the pool is tighter than the image allowance many remember from launch. Credits don't roll over: an unused balance is wiped at reset, not banked. For occasional use it's still genuinely free; in a sustained session, the ceiling arrives fast.
3. Some previously free features now cost more
Not every generation costs the same. High-resolution output and video consume more credits per request than a standard image, and Spicy Mode carries its own premium. Nothing was locked outright — but the expensive things became expensive enough that free-tier users hit zero before finishing what they started.
If your free credits run out before the day resets, there are two options: upgrade to a paid plan, or use X Imagine AI while you wait — no credits required.
Grok Imagine pricing 2026
You don't buy credits directly — you buy a tier that grants them daily. Here's how the three Grok tiers compare on cost and reset timing, with a credit-based alternative for reference.
How Much Does Grok Imagine Cost in 2026?
| Free | SuperGrok Lite | SuperGrok | X Imagine AI | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daily credits | ~5 / day | ~20 / day | ~50 / day | No daily pool — credits from a pack |
| Image generation cost | 1 credit (standard) / more at high res | 1 credit (standard) / more at high res | 1 credit (standard) / more at high res | Per-generation credit cost, no daily ceiling |
| Video generation cost | Several credits per clip — drains the pool fast | Several credits per clip | Several credits per clip | Kling, Veo and Seedance from the same balance |
| Credit reset time | Midnight UTC, no rollover | Midnight UTC, no rollover | Midnight UTC, no rollover | ✗ No reset — balance carries over |
| Monthly price | $0 | ~$10 / month | ~$30 / month | One-time pack from ~$19 |
| Flux-family model access | Aurora-based generation only | Flux plus Gemini Imagen and more | ||
| X account required | Required | Required | Required | Not required |
Credits reset once every 24 hours at midnight UTC on all three Grok tiers — that's 7 PM Eastern, 4 PM Pacific, 1 AM Central European Time, and 9 AM in Tokyo. The reset refills you to your plan's maximum, not your maximum plus whatever you didn't spend, so unused credits are lost rather than accumulated.
* xAI does not publish exact per-generation credit costs for every tier, and allocations have shifted more than once during 2026. Treat these figures as directional, verified against publicly reported limits as of July 2026.
Trial options
Is There a Free Trial for SuperGrok?
There's no dedicated, time-limited free trial — no 7-day preview, no temporary unlock of the larger credit pool. What functions as a trial is the free tier itself: roughly 5 credits a day, indefinitely, with no payment method required.
That's fine for evaluation, but a poor fit for judging the paid tiers. Five credits confirms image generation works; it doesn't tell you whether SuperGrok's ~50 credits a day would actually cover your workload, since you never experience that volume before paying for it.
The practical fix is to run your real workload somewhere without a daily ceiling first. If a normal session takes 30 generations, the free tier is clearly out. X Imagine AI works well here — no daily meter means you find out what your usage actually looks like before deciding whether a Grok subscription is worth it.
Conversion point
What To Do When Your Grok Credits Run Out
Hitting zero mid-session is when most people start looking for a way around it. There are three realistic options.
Option 1 · Free
Wait for the daily reset
Midnight UTC
Your pool refills automatically at midnight UTC — 7 PM Eastern, 4 PM Pacific, 1 AM CET, 9 AM Tokyo. It costs nothing, but the wait can be anywhere from a few minutes to nearly a full day, and the reset restores your plan maximum only — saving credits doesn't help.
Check reset timesOption 2 · Paid
Upgrade to SuperGrok Lite or SuperGrok
~$10–$30 / mo
Lite takes the daily pool from about 5 credits to about 20 for roughly $10/month. Full SuperGrok pushes it to about 50 for roughly $30. Both still reset daily — you're raising the ceiling, not removing it. Worth it if you hit zero consistently, not just occasionally.
Compare the tiersOption 3 · No credit system
Use X Imagine AI instead
No daily limit
X Imagine AI runs on the same Aurora/Flux model family as Grok Imagine, outside Grok's credit system entirely. No daily limits, no reset to wait for — just generate in the browser, no X account or subscription needed.
Related: extra usage credits
What Are Grok Extra Usage Credits?
Extra usage credits are top-up packs sold on top of a subscription, not a replacement for one. Once your daily allocation is spent, they let you keep going for the rest of that day instead of waiting for the reset — typically sold in $5 increments.
- Typical pack price$5 per pack
- What one $5 pack buysRoughly a day's worth of extra standard generations
- Available to free accounts?No — subscription tiers only
- Do extra credits expire?Yes, they follow the same daily reset cycle
- Best forOccasional overflow, not sustained volume
The economics only work at low volume. A $5 pack once a month is cheaper than jumping a tier. Buying them weekly means you've passed the point where a subscription upgrade — or a credit model with no daily reset — costs less for the same output.
Grok Imagine + Grok Video + Spicy Mode. Yearly, Monthly, or One-Time.
X Imagine AI brings Grok Imagine image generation, Grok Video creation, and Spicy Mode together on a single platform — with credits you can buy annually, subscribe to monthly, or purchase once and use across included tools. No X Premium subscription. No hitting a daily generation limit mid-project. 15,000+ creators, studios, and agencies have already made the switch.
Annual Starter
Total $120 · All credits available immediately
- 4,000 AI generation credits
- Grok Imagine image generation — full access
- Grok Video generation — cinematic AI video
- Spicy Mode unlocked
- Flux-based engine — advanced processing
- Professional-grade output quality
- Priority generation queue — no wait
- 12-month credit validity
- $120 billed once for the year
- No X Premium subscription needed
Annual Creator
Total $240 · All credits available immediately
- 9,600 AI generation credits
- Grok Imagine image generation — full access
- Grok Video generation — cinematic AI video
- Image-to-video conversion
- Spicy Mode — unlimited access
- Flux-based engine — advanced processing
- Professional-grade output quality
- Priority generation queue — no wait
- 12-month credit validity
- $240 billed once for the year
- No X Premium subscription needed
Annual Studio
Total $468 · All credits available immediately
- 19,200 AI generation credits
- Grok Imagine image generation — unrestricted
- Grok Video generation — cinematic AI video
- Image-to-video conversion
- Spicy Mode — unlimited access
- Flux-based engine — advanced features
- Ultra-high resolution output
- Priority generation — no queue
- Batch image processing
- 12-month credit validity
- $468 billed once for the year
- Priority technical support
Annual Scale
Total $708 · All credits available immediately
- 33,600 AI generation credits
- Grok Imagine image generation — unrestricted
- Grok Video generation — cinematic AI video
- Image-to-video conversion
- Spicy Mode — unlimited access
- Flux-based engine — advanced features
- Ultra-high resolution output
- Priority generation — no queue
- Batch image processing
- 12-month credit validity
- $708 billed once for the year
- Priority technical support
Annual Starter
Total $120 · All credits available immediately
- 4,000 AI generation credits
- Grok Imagine image generation — full access
- Grok Video generation — cinematic AI video
- Spicy Mode unlocked
- Flux-based engine — advanced processing
- Professional-grade output quality
- Priority generation queue — no wait
- 12-month credit validity
- $120 billed once for the year
- No X Premium subscription needed
Annual Creator
Total $240 · All credits available immediately
- 9,600 AI generation credits
- Grok Imagine image generation — full access
- Grok Video generation — cinematic AI video
- Image-to-video conversion
- Spicy Mode — unlimited access
- Flux-based engine — advanced processing
- Professional-grade output quality
- Priority generation queue — no wait
- 12-month credit validity
- $240 billed once for the year
- No X Premium subscription needed
Annual Studio
Total $468 · All credits available immediately
- 19,200 AI generation credits
- Grok Imagine image generation — unrestricted
- Grok Video generation — cinematic AI video
- Image-to-video conversion
- Spicy Mode — unlimited access
- Flux-based engine — advanced features
- Ultra-high resolution output
- Priority generation — no queue
- Batch image processing
- 12-month credit validity
- $468 billed once for the year
- Priority technical support
Annual Scale
Total $708 · All credits available immediately
- 33,600 AI generation credits
- Grok Imagine image generation — unrestricted
- Grok Video generation — cinematic AI video
- Image-to-video conversion
- Spicy Mode — unlimited access
- Flux-based engine — advanced features
- Ultra-high resolution output
- Priority generation — no queue
- Batch image processing
- 12-month credit validity
- $708 billed once for the year
- Priority technical support
Grok Imagine Pricing FAQ
Credits Ran Out? Create Without Limits
X Imagine AI runs on the same model as Grok Imagine. No credits. No daily resets. No waiting.
Imagine X AI works in the browser — ximagineai needs no X account and no monthly subscription to start.