Grok 4.7 arrives with 500K context window and four reasoning levels
xAI released Grok 4.7 on September 21, 2026, the same day it became available via the xAI API, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot paid plans. For developers comparing frontier models, three things stand out: the expanded context window, the reasoning flexibility, and a pricing structure that changes materially above 200k tokens.
Context and reasoning
xAI describes Grok 4.7 as a larger base model than Grok 4.6 — a vendor claim without published parameter counts to verify. What is published: the context window extends to 500,000 tokens, and the model offers four configurable reasoning levels. The number of levels matters because it lets developers tune the cost-quality tradeoff per call rather than choosing a separate model for different tasks. Claude and OpenAI’s frontier models also expose reasoning controls, but configurable levels as a named product feature is part of how xAI differentiates Grok 4.7.
On CursorBench 4.0 — a benchmark run by Cursor that measures coding assistant performance — Grok 4.7 scored 46.3%. That number is published, but interpreting it requires knowing where competing models scored on the same benchmark at the same time; it is a useful data point for Cursor users specifically, not a general performance ranking against all frontier models.
Pricing and the 200k cliff
Sticker price is unchanged from Grok 4.6: $2 per million input tokens, $6 per million output tokens. That puts Grok 4.7 input pricing on par with Claude Sonnet 5.5 and GPT-6.1 Sol and below Claude Opus 5.5’s $4/M. The important caveat is a pricing cliff: tokens beyond 200k are billed at double the base rate. A task filling 450k of context costs substantially more than the headline rate implies, and the effective cost for a full 500k-token call is meaningfully higher than $2/M.
Teams building applications that rely on very long contexts should model the actual cost at their typical token distribution before treating the 500k window as a feature with a $2/M price tag.
What this changes for the xAI vs. Anthropic vs. OpenAI comparison
Grok 4.7’s same-day availability on Cursor and GitHub Copilot means developers using those tools can reach it without changing their workflow. That distribution advantage is real and immediate.
On context length, the comparison is less favorable to xAI. Models from Anthropic (Claude Opus 5.5 and Sonnet 5.5 both support 1M context) and Google (Gemini 4 Argon’s million-token output limit implies equivalent input capacity) already exceed Grok 4.7’s 500k in available context. Grok 4.7 narrows the gap relative to Grok 4.6 without reaching the current ceiling of other providers.
The four reasoning levels are a practical convenience, and the pricing is competitive at moderate context lengths. For teams already using the xAI API or Cursor who want a cost-competitive option with configurable reasoning, Grok 4.7 is a reasonable choice within those constraints. For teams building applications that regularly push past 200k tokens, the pricing cliff requires careful evaluation before committing.
Sources
- xAI. “Grok 4.7.” Introducing Grok 4.7 | SpaceXAI (September 21, 2026)