Cheapest Grok 3 mini API: SwiftRoute is 91% below the official price
Grok 3 mini costs $0.300/$0.500 per 1M tokens from xAI. The cheapest quote is SwiftRoute: $0.028 in, $0.046 out. Full table and buying checklist below.
| # | Provider | 1M input | 1M output | Discount | Tokens per $100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | Official list | $0.300 | $0.500 | 0% | 300M |
| 1 | SwiftRoutedemo | $0.028 | $0.046 | −91% | 3.24B |
| 2 | APIBridgedemo | $0.106 | $0.177 | −65% | 846M |
| 3 | FluxAPIdemo | $0.148 | $0.247 | −51% | 607M |
| 4 | ByteGatedemo | $0.241 | $0.401 | −20% | 374M |
Tokens per $100 assume a “code” mix: 5 input tokens per output token. Prices are crawled; verify them on the provider page before buying.
What to check before buying
- Test the key with the free API checker — it verifies the endpoint responds, without sending tokens.
- Compare the blended cost for your workload, not just the input price: output tokens dominate in agent workloads.
- Check uptime and minimum top-up: the cheapest provider is useless if it is down half the day.