Inkling Small vs Inkling
Side-by-side comparison of API pricing, specs, benchmarks, and capabilities
Inkling Small is 70.2% cheaper on blended cost ($0.525 vs $1.76/Mtok) — note: different model classes (budget vs mid tier)
| Specification |
Inkling SmallIntro price
|
InklingIntro price
|
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Status | Current budget Open weights | Current mid tier Open weights |
| Released | Jul 30, 2026 | Jul 15, 2026 |
| Pricing per million tokens | ||
| Input | $0.300/Mtok | $1.00/Mtok |
| Output | $1.20/Mtok | $4.05/Mtok |
| Blended avg | $0.525/Mtok | $1.76/Mtok |
| Cached input | $0.060/Mtok | $0.170/Mtok |
| Specifications | ||
| Context window | 262K tokens | 262K tokens |
| Parameters | 276B total / 12B active | 975B total / 41B active |
| Speed (TPS) | — | — |
| Modalities | ||
| Input |
textimageaudio
|
textimageaudio
|
| Benchmarks source: Artificial Analysis | ||
| Independent composite scores measured for both models — each on its own scale | ||
| AA Intelligence Index | 40.2 | 40.7 |
| AA Agentic Index | 30.8 | 32.3 |
| AA-Omniscience Index (−100–100) | -9 | 2 |
| LMSYS Chatbot Arena | 1430.5 ELO | 1440.8 ELO |
| GDPval-AA v2 | — | 1236.8 ELO |
| Providers | ||
| Available from |
Thinking Machines — $0.300/$1.20/Mtok
|
Thinking Machines — $1.00/$4.05/Mtok
|
Cost at scale
1M tokens · 50/50 input/output| Volume | Inkling Small | Inkling | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1M tokens | $0.52 | $1.76 | $1.24 (70.4%) |
| 10M tokens | $5.25 | $17.63 | $12.38 (70.2%) |
| 100M tokens | $52.5 | $176.25 | $123.75 (70.2%) |
| 1000M tokens | $525 | $1762.5 | $1237.5 (70.2%) |
When to pick which
distilled from the pricing and spec data above
Pick Inkling Small if…
- cost dominates: $0.525/Mtok blended vs $1.76 — 70.2% less on the same 50/50 token mix
Pick Inkling if…
- your workload re-reads context (agents, RAG, long chats): cached input costs $0.170/Mtok — 83% off its list input price
Summary
Inkling Small by Thinking Machines costs $0.300/Mtok input and $1.20/Mtok output, with a 262K-token context window. It supports text, image, audio input.
Inkling by Thinking Machines costs $1.00/Mtok input and $4.05/Mtok output, with a 262K-token context window. It supports text, image, audio input.
On a blended cost basis, Inkling Small is 70.2% cheaper than Inkling.
Note: Pricing is per million tokens. Actual costs vary with usage patterns, prompt caching, and batch discounts. Always verify against official provider pricing pages.
More comparisons
pairs sharing a model with this page
Inkling Small vs Claude Haiku 4.5
74% price gap
Inkling Small vs Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite
38% price gap
Inkling vs Nemotron 3 Ultra
23% price gap
Inkling vs Muse Spark 1.1
12% price gap
Claude Fable 5 vs DeepSeek V4 Pro
97% price gap
Claude Opus 5 vs DeepSeek V4 Pro
95% price gap
DeepSeek V4 Pro vs Claude Sonnet 4.6
91% price gap
Kimi K3 vs DeepSeek V4 Pro
91% price gap