xAI retires Grok Imagine Image Quality and changes default billing

xAI will retire the grok-imagine-image-quality API slug on November 2, 2026. Requests sent to that slug will then be served by grok-imagine-image-2.0 at low quality, with the same request and response shape and a lower per-image price, according to xAI’s developer release notes.

The change matters for integrations that treat a model slug as a stable contract. Existing callers may continue to work, but their output quality and billing behavior can change unless they pin the replacement model and quality explicitly.

What changes on November 2

The retired slug will route to Grok Imagine Image 2.0 with quality=low. xAI says the original grok-imagine-image 1.0 model is not affected. The migration therefore concerns the grok-imagine-image-quality alias, not every Imagine endpoint.

xAI has also moved Grok Imagine Image 2.0’s omitted-quality default to auto. At present, auto uses low quality for image generation and medium quality for image editing. Billing follows the quality actually served. Applications that need predictable cost or output quality should pass low or medium explicitly instead of relying on the default.

Grok Imagine Image 2.0 is the replacement surface

OpenRouter currently lists Grok Imagine Image 2.0 as an xAI image generation and editing model, with low-quality 1K output from $0.04 per image and medium-quality 2K output from $0.08. Its listing also confirms text-and-image input and image output, giving developers an independent availability and pricing reference for the replacement model.

xAI’s release notes add two capability changes: image editing can accept up to five reference images, up from three, and generation and editing now support 21:9 and 5:2 aspect ratios. Those changes may affect validation code, UI constraints, and prompt templates that assume the older input limits.

Migration checks for API users

Before the retirement date:

• Search code, configuration, and model allowlists for grok-imagine-image-quality.
• Decide whether generation or editing should use explicit low or medium quality.
• Recheck cost estimates because auto can select a different quality by operation.
• Test image-editing flows that pass reference images or wide aspect ratios.
• Keep grok-imagine-image 1.0 separate if the older model is still required.

The safest migration is explicit: move new calls to grok-imagine-image-2.0, set quality deliberately, and monitor output and spend before November 2. The old alias may remain syntactically compatible, but xAI’s announced routing change means compatibility alone will not preserve behavior.

Sources

• xAI developer release notes
• OpenRouter: Grok Imagine Image 2.0