Grok 4.6 Request Burn Rate

Hey, thanks for the report. This behavior is expected, but yeah, the number is still unpleasantly surprising.

On the legacy request-based plan, new frontier models like Grok 4.6 aren’t billed as one message equals one request. They’re billed by actual token usage (token-based / Max Mode), which then gets converted into requests at a rate of $0.04 per request. More details for legacy plans are in this thread: Legacy Individual Plan - Max Mode Required

Why one session turned into hundreds of requests:

  • Grok 4.6 has the Fast toggle on by default, and it’s billed at about 2x the normal mode.
  • Long agent sessions reread the full, growing chat context on every tool call, so even small steps near the end of a long session can cost a lot.

How to reduce usage:

  • Turn off Fast in the model picker.
  • Set a lower reasoning effort.
  • Start a new chat when you switch tasks so the context doesn’t keep growing.
  • Composer is still the most request-efficient option on your plan.

Let me know if any of this doesn’t match what you’re seeing.