Is Claude Fable 5 cheaper than Grok 4.20?

Grok 4.20 is cheaper: roughly $1.63 vs $22 per 1M tokens (blended). Claude Fable 5: $10 in · $50 out / 1M tokens. Grok 4.20: $1.25 in · $2.50 out / 1M tokens.

Can I switch between Claude Fable 5 and Grok 4.20 in the same agent?

Yes. Model-agnostic agents (Cline, Aider, OpenClaw, Hermes Agent, Kilo Code, OpenCode) let you swap models per task. Many people route hard tasks to the stronger model and routine work to the cheaper one.

Claude Fable 5 vs Grok 4.20 — Which AI Model Is Better? (2026)

Q: Claude Fable 5 vs Grok 4.20: which is better for agents?

Claude Fable 5 scores higher on output quality (9.0/10 vs 5.8/10), while Grok 4.20 is the cheaper option. Claude Fable 5 is best for existing Fable 5 setups that have not yet moved to Fable 5.1 or Opus 5.5; Grok 4.20 is best for runs that need more than 1M tokens of context. Live community votes on this page show what people actually prefer.

Community vote

Pick a winner in each dimension. You can change your vote any time.

Output Quality

Correctness and depth of what it produces

Agentic Ability

Tool calls, instruction-following, and multi-step tasks

Speed

Tokens per second and time-to-first-token

Value for Money

How much capability you get per dollar

Reliability

Consistent results: fewer refusals, loops and format breaks

Specs and pricing side by side

Spec

Fable 5

Grok 4.20

Maker

Anthropic

xAI

Blended price / 1M

$22

$1.63

Input / output

$10 in · $50 out / 1M tokens

$1.25 in · $2.50 out / 1M tokens

Context window

Open weights

Tool use

Yes

Reasoning

Yes

Output Quality

9.0

5.8

Agentic Ability

8.3

4.7

Speed

6.8

7.6

Value for Money

4.1

4.4

Reliability

9.4

8.4

Pricing and capabilities synced from the OpenRouter catalogue. Scores are editorial (0–10).

Verdict: Fable 5 or Grok 4.20?

Updated 2026-10-14

Choose Claude Fable 5 if you want existing Fable 5 setups that have not yet moved to Fable 5.1 or Opus 5.5. Choose Grok 4.20 if you want runs that need more than 1M tokens of context.

In our editorial scoring, Claude Fable 5 leads in 3 of five dimensions (output quality, agentic ability and reliability), while Grok 4.20 leads in 2. On price, Claude Fable 5 runs about $22 per 1M tokens (blended) and is proprietary; Grok 4.20 is about $1.63 and proprietary.

Where Fable 5 falls short