AI API Pricing Keeps Compressing: Grok 4.3 at $0.50/$2, Opus 4.8 Fast Mode ~3x Cheaper

BuildFastWithAI·medium signal

June 8 pricing data shows Grok 4.3 undercutting competitors at $0.50/$2 per million input/output tokens, while Claude Opus 4.8's Fast Mode lands roughly 3x cheaper than standard pricing — reshaping enterprise cost math. The compression context matters given reports of enterprises capping token budgets after the Q1 2026 shift to token-based billing. Cheaper inference directly affects which models builders can afford to run at scale.