Grok: regional restrictions and alternatives for your project

In the terms of service for SpaceXAI, the company behind Grok (formerly called xAI), you confirm that you are not located in a country subject to US sanctions.

In the experience described here, a paid Grok subscription was not used: it was expensive, and its effectiveness was still unclear. Projects were built using other models.

Below, we look at what SpaceXAI says and which alternatives to use instead of Grok. Let’s get started.

Practical resources on models and agents: the Ailoot documentation.

Is Grok worth paying for?#

In the experience described here, Grok was hardly used, and no paid subscription was purchased. It was expensive, and its effectiveness was still unclear.

A positive or negative assessment without enough experience using it would be unfounded.

For comparison, the example described here used 3 Claude accounts, each on the $200 Max plan. The business’s operations were built around Claude. Subscriptions to Kimi, ChatGPT and Gemini were also used; Grok had not yet been explored.

Additional resources on working with agents: the Ailoot documentation.

What a paid Grok subscription offers and who might find it useful is covered in a separate article.

Practical resources on using models in projects: the Ailoot documentation.

What SpaceXAI says about sanctions#

The restriction appears in the terms of service, in the Export Controls clause:

Translation: “You represent and warrant that neither you nor anyone to whom you give access to the Service or who acts on your behalf (a) appears on the SDN list or another list of sanctioned or prohibited persons maintained by OFAC or another government body, and (b) is located in, is a citizen or resident of, or forms part of the government of a country or territory against which the US maintains trade or economic sanctions or embargoes, or which the US government has designated as a region ‘supporting terrorism’.”

SpaceXAI does not name a specific country and refers to US sanctions.

The SpaceXAI acceptable use policy also includes this provision. “Offering the Service in a region where we do not offer the Service” is prohibited: offering Grok in a region where the company does not offer it. The FAQ also states that limited free access and paid Grok plans depend on your location.

What to use instead of Grok#

For coding and projects, the experience described here followed this order.

Claude Code. The smartest code-producing machine. The experience described here involved trying different options: ChatGPT, Qwen, Chinese models and GLM. Nothing was better.

Codex from ChatGPT. If you cannot get anywhere with Claude. It is easier to get access, with fewer blocks.

Qwen. The Chinese model Qwen is a plan B. It trails Opus by roughly 10% and takes a little longer, but it is 3-5 times cheaper than Claude Code. Its paid version was used in the experience described here.

DeepSeek. A last resort if none of the options above worked out. It is a Chinese platform. But it will not handle a long task: according to the observations described here, it breaks down along the way.

Which model to use for which tasks, to avoid overpaying, is covered in a separate article.

If Grok is part of your product#

So plan for a backup provider from the start. The setup described here has several stages: when the account balance runs out, the project automatically switches to another provider, and from there to another model. Work does not stop: while the balance is being topped up, everything goes through the backup, then switches back.

If Grok was your main model, put one that works for you at the first stage.

When choosing a replacement for Grok, note which model suited your task.

More resources and tools: Ailoot.