$300 a month. That's what XAI charges on

their own consumer plan to get access to

Grok bot, or 200 if you go through

Cursor, or 120 if you buy it for a team.

Three different doors, three different

prices for this same exact product.

There's no free tier, and there's no

free trial. So, I did the thing that I

always do before I spend money on a tool

or product. I went and watched people

who already spent money on it. Not the

launch video, the reviews. And I found

something none of them say out loud. For

the first creator, that's Brock

Mezerich, "It feels like a beta. It's

rough around the edges. There are

definitely better alternatives for a

much cheaper price." He names them

Claude and Co-work and ChatGPT.

>> First of all, it does feel like a beta.

Kind of does feel rough around the

edges. It just doesn't feel very

polished. I think they have a lot of

improvements they can do with this

platform. And then, having to pay $200 a

month to use this right now does seem

like a lot of money. I do think there

are better alternatives out there using

something like Claude Co-work or ChatGPT

work for much cheaper.

>> He's right about the price. I want to

put a real number on it. Claude Co-work

isn't a separate product you buy, it

comes with Claude Pro. $20 a month.

That's the entry-level price for an

agent that reads your files, runs

multi-step work, and hands you something

finished.

ChatGPT Plus is also $20 a month. If you

want the heavy coding tiers, ChatGPT Pro

runs 100 and 200 for Pro Max. And it's

very similar for Claude.

So, the cheapest door to Grok bot costs

10 times what the cheapest door to

Claude Co-work costs.

Now, price alone doesn't kill a product.

Sometimes you pay more and get more. So,

the real question is what those extra

dollars buy you.

Now, here's the second creator, Nate

Hurk, runs an AI automation business. He

likes Grokbot, and he's told you exactly

when he uses it.

Not at his desk. When he's

building something, he's using either

Claude Code or Codex. He uses Grokbot in

the back of an Uber, on vacation,

sitting at a restaurant because it syncs

with his phone.

>> Well, if I'm sitting down at my desk and

I am working on knowledge work, if I'm

trying to build things, I will not be

using this. I will be using my Codex, my

Claude Code. That's what I like to drive

with when I'm sitting down at my desk.

Now, if I'm traveling, if I'm in the

back of an Uber, if I'm on a vacation,

if I'm sitting at a restaurant, this is

what I'll be using because my phone

syncs to it right away, and it just

keeps things super clean and super easy.

>> Seems like it's very convenient. I want

to be fair with him because that's a

real use case, being able to kick off

work from your phone genuinely matters

if you travel a lot. But, here's what

he's actually describing. He's

describing a convenience layer, a thing

he reaches for when he's away from the

tool he actually trusts.

That is $200 a month to check on work

while you're in a car.

And I almost let that go until I checked

whether the cheap tools do it, too. They

do. Cowork has been in the cloud app on

iPhone and Android since July 7th, not a

separate app, a tab in the one you

already have. ChatGPT work shipped agent

mode on mobile July 9th. Both run in the

cloud, so the work keeps going with your

phone in your pocket. And Grokbot

launched August 11th. So, the Uber thing

was a $20 feature a month before Grokbot

even existed. And this is a pattern

across every review I watched. The demos

are very impressive. The verdicts are

some version of this is cool and here's

when I don't use it.

Now, here's where I have to be honest

with you because the third clip cuts

against my own argument. Uh creator

number three is Claire Vo How I AI.

She runs benchmarks. She's technical.

Her complaint about Grokbot

is that it's too easy, too simple. She

can't hack it. She can't pick the

models. She doesn't get the config file

level of control she likes.

>> What I don't like about Grokbot? Well, I

don't like that it's so simple and I

don't like that I can't hack it.

>> And she says something at the end that

I'm not going to skip past.

>> That being said,

it works and the connector and kind of

like UX affordances are quite nice.

>> It works. The connectors are nice. The

experience is good. I think she's

telling the truth and I think it

matters. If you have never set up an AI

agent before and the technical stuff

kind of scare you, it has been the exact

thing that stopped you from working on

AI,

then a product that just works out the

box is something real and maybe

something worth um something to you. But

notice what her complaint reveals. She's

used it for about a week and went back

to her old setup. Her words and her

description, she still reaches for her

open claw.

Three creators, three different reasons.

All three ended up back in the tool they

were already paying for.

There's one more thing I want you to

know before you decide and it has

nothing to do with price.

To do anything useful with Grokbot,

it signs into your accounts, your email,

your file, using your credentials,

acting as you.

I went looking for the security posture

on that. There's no SOC

2 claim, no ISO 27001,

no GDPR,

no HIPAA,

no FedRAMP, no published retention

period, no data

residency option.

It's

still an early beta product, and there's

no reliability data out yet.

And the part that actually stopped me,

the documentation says a test run does

real work. It's not a sandbox.

If it does something wrong on your live

accounts, refusing to approve it

afterward doesn't undo what had already

happened.

Compare that to what the cheap one does.

ChatGPT work has a watch mode that

pauses before anything consequential or

irreversible,

and asks you first. Same category of

product, opposite default.

Maybe that will get fixed in the short

term.

It's 3 weeks old. Beta products ship

without compliance paperwork all the

time, and most of them are fine.

But,

you're being asked to hand over your

logins to a product with no sandbox at 2

to $300 a month to do work that a $20

subscription

has already been doing at your desk.

So, here's where I land. If you're

already paying for a Claude or ChatGPT,

you're getting your work done. I don't

think Grokbot changes anything for you

right now. The people who liked it the

most told you when they don't use it.

That's not a hit piece. That's just

what's in their videos.

If you travel constantly, and the phone

first thing solves a real problem you

have,

that's the one case where I understand

paying for this product. Going through

the cheapest store and connect the

accounts you'd be okay losing.

And if you never use an agent at all,

start with the $20 one, learn what these

things are actually good at, then decide

whether you're missing anything.

This is not financial advice. I don't

know your situation. Do your own

research before you make a big decision.

The thing that surprised me here wasn't

the Grokster is bad, that the reviews

telling you it's incredible and the

reviews telling you where it falls short

are the same reviews. You just have to

watch past the demo. So, what am I

missing? If you're paying the $30 and

it's replaced something for you, I want

to hear it because I couldn't find that

in person. Tell me in the comments

below. Thanks for watching. My name's

Brock Mayo. Peace.