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Model vs model

Inkling vs Inkling Small

By ModelCompare ·

Free to try, no account needed. You see each answer’s cost and speed.

At a glance

Longer bar means the bigger number.

Open or closed · can you download the model and run it yourself?

InklingOpen weights · download it, run it on your own hardware or any host
Inkling SmallOpen weights · download it, run it on your own hardware or any host

Blended price · per 1M tokens, lower is better

Inkling$1.76
Inkling Small$0.64

Intelligence Index · Artificial Analysis, higher is better

Inkling25
Inkling Small25.7

Context window · tokens it can read at once

Inkling256K
Inkling Small1M

Where they sit among all 44 models

Inkling ranks 29th of the 43 models with an Intelligence Index, Inkling Small 27th. Up and to the left is smarter for less money. Hover or tap a dot for its numbers, then click it to compare that model with Inkling.

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Rank by
Intelligence: the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index. Price: blended per 1M tokens, 3 parts input to 1 part output, on a log scale.

Which one to pick

Pick Inkling if

  • you care about τ-Bench Banking (tool use): 29.1 vs 18.8

Pick Inkling Small if

  • you want the lower bill ($0.64 vs $1.76 per 1M tokens blended)
  • you need a longer context window (1M vs 256K tokens)

See how they answer your prompt

Same prompt, both models

We send the same short tests to every model several times. These are the ones where Inkling and Inkling Small answered differently, from our runs on October 18, 2026 and October 25, 2026. Long answers are cut short.

Name a smart-umbrella startup

“Invent a name for a startup that sells smart umbrellas. Reply with the name only.”

Inkling

“umbraiq” 3 of 5 times

UmbraIQ

$0.0023 · 4.8s

Inkling Small

“sheltr” 2 of 5 times

Sheltr

$0.0009 · 5.1s

Best AI model

“Which AI model is the best right now? Reply with one model name only.”

Inkling

3 different answers in 3 tries

Claude 4.5 Sonnet

$0.0028 · 5.9s

Inkling Small

“claude 35 sonnet” 3 of 3 times

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

$0.0003 · 1.8s

Run your own test on both

Asked to draw the same picture

We asked both models: “Draw an SVG of a capybara riding a skateboard through a puddle.” They had to answer with SVG code alone, with no image tools.

Inkling's SVG drawing of a capybara riding a skateboard through a puddle

Inkling

Inkling Small's SVG drawing of a capybara riding a skateboard through a puddle

Inkling Small

Each model’s first drawing, exactly as it wrote the SVG. Nothing was picked or retouched.

Ask both for your own drawing

How smart is each one?

Of the 16 scores both models have, Inkling is ahead on 6 and Inkling Small on 5, and 5 are within a point.

Every intelligence score we have

Out of 100, higher is better. Inkling Inkling Small

Overall

  • Intelligence Index

By area

  • Coding

  • Agentic work

By field of work

  • Finance & accounting

  • Legal

  • Healthcare & medicine

  • Economics

  • Engineering

  • Strategy & operations

Benchmarks

  • Factual knowledge · SimpleQA

  • Hard reasoning · Humanity's Last Exam

  • Science · GPQA Diamond

  • Scientific coding · SciCode

  • Terminal tasks · Terminal-Bench 4.0

  • Tool use · τ-Bench Banking

  • Long documents · AA-LCR

Test them on your own question

The specs

Spec Inkling Inkling Small
Input price$1 per 1M$0.45 per 1M
Output price$4.05 per 1M$1.20 per 1M
Cost per test taskNot tested$0.0895
Context window256K1M
Max output256K1M
AcceptsText, Image, PDFText, Image, PDF
Open weightsYesYes
LabThinking MachinesThinking Machines
ReleasedJul 2026Jul 2026
Knowledge cutoffNot publishedNot published

Blended price weighs 3 parts input to 1 part output. List prices from models.dev. Cost per test task from Artificial Analysis.

Questions

Is Inkling or Inkling Small cheaper?

Inkling Small is cheaper. It charges $0.45 per 1M input tokens and $1.20 per 1M output tokens, against $1 and $4.05 for Inkling. Blended 3 parts input to 1 part output, that is $0.64 against $1.76 per 1M tokens.

Are Inkling and Inkling Small open source?

Both are open-weights models: Thinking Machines publishes the weights, so you can download them and run them on your own hardware, or call them through any host's API. Check each model's license before you ship it.

Which is smarter, Inkling or Inkling Small?

They score about the same on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: Inkling 25, Inkling Small 25.7. The biggest differences are on τ-Bench Banking (29.1 vs 18.8) and SciCode (47 vs 49.7).

Which has the longer context window?

Inkling Small accepts 1M tokens, against 256K for Inkling.

Can I compare Inkling and Inkling Small on my own prompt?

Yes. ModelCompare sends one prompt to both models at once and shows each answer side by side with what it cost. You can try it free without an account.

Still deciding? Send one prompt to both and read the answers side by side, with what each one cost. Compare Inkling and Inkling Small →

Where the numbers come from

Intelligence Index and benchmark scores are from Artificial Analysis, at each model’s highest effort, except SimpleQA, which is from Epoch AI, and the Uncensored score, which is from the UGI Leaderboard. The hallucination test is ours: questions with one exact answer, fake evidence pushed against right answers and requests that tempt a model to name packages that don’t exist. Prices are list prices from models.dev. Example answers come from our own test runs. Updated October 26, 2026.