Grok’s AI companions drove downloads, but its latest model is the one making money

Grok’s raunchy, unfiltered AI companions may be making headlines for their unhinged and often NSFW responses, but it’s Grok 4, xAI’s latest model, that’s been driving the app’s revenue of late.

Elon Musk’s xAI launched Grok 4 late on July 9, and by Friday, July 11, Grok’s gross revenue on iOS had jumped a whopping 325% to $419,000, up from $99,000 the day before the Grok 4 launch, according to app intelligence firm Appfigures.

Grok continued to pull in higher-than-usual revenue in the days following the launch of the new model, with gross revenue in the high $367,000s for a couple of days before dipping down to $310,000 on July 14.

In addition, daily downloads of the Grok iOS app had increased 279% to 197,000 by July 11, up from 52,000 before Grok 4 launched.

But following the addition of Grok’s AI companions the next week, on July 14, the jump in downloads and revenue was less pronounced. While curiosity about the companions likely drove more installs, the feature isn’t yet poised to be a significant money-maker for the company, despite being only available to “Super Grok” subscribers paying $30 per month.

Grok’s iOS downloads globally were up 40% the day after the companions launched, reaching 171,000 daily installs, but revenue increased just 9%, hitting $337,000.

So while it’s clear that there was an impact from the launch, it’s decidedly smaller than the launch of the new AI model.

Given Grok’s expensive new subscription offering, timed alongside the Grok 4 launch, it’s not surprising to see that even a smaller increase in the number of paying subscribers could drive Grok’s iOS revenue significantly higher.

The company announced that, in addition to Grok 4 and Grok 4 Heavy, it would also offer a $300-per-month subscription called SuperGrok Heavy, its priciest plan to date. The plan offers subscribers early access to Grok 4 Heavy and other new features, xAI said, but it’s more expensive than comparable plans from other major AI providers, including OpenAI, Google and Anthropic.

It’s interesting to see this demand for Grok’s subscription plans, even though the AI was initially consulting Elon Musk’s X posts for answers. xAI has since addressed this issue.

Interest in the new model also drove up Grok’s ranking on the U.S. App Store shortly after its launch, making Grok the No. 3 top app overall, and No. 2 in the Productivity category by July 12.

That interest has declined somewhat over the past week — the app is now No. 17 overall — though it’s still No. 2 in Productivity, Appfigures data shows.

Appfigures notes that it focused on iOS data for this analysis, as that data set is currently more comprehensive than data from Android devices. The latter is only available through July 14 for the time being, as Appfigures’ model needs more time to process Google Play data.