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Tool call · 7 checks · max 400 tokens · benched 2026-09-16

Grok 4.6 vs Grok 4.5 vs Grok 4.20 vs Grok 4.3 on emit a calendar tool call

xAI models side by side on "Emit a calendar tool call": Grok 4.3 scores 10/10; Grok 4.3 is the cheapest answer scoring 8+ at $1.28 per 1,000 runs. Outputs, checks, judge reasons, latency and cost.

The prompt every model received

System

You are a function-calling engine. Reply with JSON only, no prose, no code fences.

User

You have one tool:
{"name": "create_event", "parameters": {"title": "string", "start": "ISO 8601 date-time without timezone, e.g. 2026-01-31T09:00", "duration_minutes": "integer", "attendees": "array of email strings"}}

Produce the tool call for this user message as a JSON object of the shape {"name": string, "arguments": object}.

User: Book a 45-minute design review with [email protected] and [email protected] on 2 October 2026 at 3pm.

Rubric for the judge: Correct tool name, ISO start 2026-10-02T15:00, integer duration 45, both attendees in an array, a sensible title.

Side by side

Every cell is one OpenRouter call at temperature 0 with the prompt's token cap and reasoning effort "low" where the model supports it. Cost is usage × the catalogue rate in models.json. Quality is one judge call to anthropic/claude-haiku-4.5 against the prompt's rubric, cached per prompt version.

Grok 4.6

x-ai/grok-4.6

10/10
Latency
520ms
Cost
$0.00237
Per 1,000
$2.37

358 in · 307 out (249 reasoning) · 13 words · checks 7/7

  • json_valid
  • json_keys
  • regex
  • contains
  • regex
  • contains
  • contains
{"name": "create_event", "arguments": {"title": "Design Review", "start": "2026-10-02T15:00", "duration_minutes": 45, "attendees": ["[email protected]", "[email protected]"]}}

Judge: All rubric criteria met: correct tool name, proper ISO 8601 start datetime, integer duration of 45 minutes, both attendees in array format, and sensible title.

Grok 4.5

x-ai/grok-4.5

10/10
Latency
286ms
Cost
$0.00157
Per 1,000
$1.57

358 in · 178 out (120 reasoning) · 13 words · checks 7/7

  • json_valid
  • json_keys
  • regex
  • contains
  • regex
  • contains
  • contains
{"name": "create_event", "arguments": {"title": "design review", "start": "2026-10-02T15:00", "duration_minutes": 45, "attendees": ["[email protected]", "[email protected]"]}}

Judge: All rubric criteria met: correct tool name, proper ISO 8601 start datetime, integer duration of 45 minutes, both attendees in array format, and sensible title.

Grok 4.20

x-ai/grok-4.20

10/10
Latency
261ms
Cost
$0.00142
Per 1,000
$1.42

330 in · 457 out (403 reasoning) · 13 words · checks 7/7

  • json_valid
  • json_keys
  • regex
  • contains
  • regex
  • contains
  • contains
{"name": "create_event", "arguments": {"title": "Design Review", "start": "2026-10-02T15:00", "duration_minutes": 45, "attendees": ["[email protected]", "[email protected]"]}}

Judge: All rubric criteria met: correct tool name, proper ISO 8601 start datetime, integer duration of 45 minutes, both attendees in array format, and sensible title.

Grok 4.3

x-ai/grok-4.3

10/10
top judge scorecheapest scoring 8+
Latency
268ms
Cost
$0.00128
Per 1,000
$1.28

336 in · 425 out (361 reasoning) · 17 words · checks 7/7

  • json_valid
  • json_keys
  • regex
  • contains
  • regex
  • contains
  • contains
{
  "name": "create_event",
  "arguments": {
    "title": "design review",
    "start": "2026-10-02T15:00",
    "duration_minutes": 45,
    "attendees": ["[email protected]", "[email protected]"]
  }
}

Judge: All rubric requirements met: correct tool name, ISO start datetime 2026-10-02T15:00, integer duration 45, both attendees in array, and sensible title 'design review'.

Frequently asked

What does this prompt test?

Tool call: Correct tool name, ISO start 2026-10-02T15:00, integer duration 45, both attendees in an array, a sensible title. The deterministic checks are json_valid, json_keys, regex, contains, regex, contains, contains.

Which model should I pick for this task?

If the judge's bar of 8/10 is good enough for you, Grok 4.3 at $1.28 per 1,000 runs. If you need the top score, Grok 4.3 at $1.28 per 1,000 runs.

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