--- title: "Thinking Machines: Inkling Small — price, capability and what beats it · Undominated.ai" canonical: https://undominated.ai/models/thinkingmachines__inkling-small/ description: "Thinking Machines: Inkling Small: $0.450/M in, $1.20/M out. Independent capability scores, and alternatives compared under recorded workload and capability requirements." --- # Thinking Machines: Inkling Small — price, capability and what beats it · Undominated.ai > Thinking Machines: Inkling Small: $0.450/M in, $1.20/M out. Independent capability scores, and alternatives compared under recorded workload and capability requirements. [Check base rates for this workload](/check/thinkingmachines__inkling-small/) [Cheaper alternatives](/alternatives/thinkingmachines__inkling-small/) [Family](/families/inkling/) [Compare models](https://undominated.ai/compare/?models=thinkingmachines%2Finkling-small) Comparison context Choose up to three standard models in Compare. Requirements and prompt length apply in Compare. This page keeps its stated price basis and workload controls. MODEL PROOF # Inkling Small Thinking Machines · 30 Jul 2026 Balanced Summarise Chat Code gen Agentic TRADE-OFF ## A stored alternative has an equal-or-higher score and an equal-or-lower price, with capability losses. **$0.638** / 1M tokens Balanced · 3 tokens in per 1 out [MiMo-V2.6-Pro](/models/xiaomi__mimo-v2.6-pro/) · Δ score 77.3 points · 15% lower measured price - 262K → 131K max output Evidence as of 06 Oct 2026 [openrouter/models](https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/models) [LMArena · cc-by-4.0](https://huggingface.co/datasets/lmarena-ai/leaderboard-dataset) Independent LMArena score 1,413.7 ± 4.87 · 27,070 votes Context window 524.29K Maximum output 262.14K Input modalities text, image, audio Output modalities text Published input price $0.450 / 1M tokens Published output price $1.20 / 1M tokens Pricing kind fixed Inspect [complete billing conditions](#billing-details) and endpoint terms below. Price from DeepInfra: the cheapest offer that is serving, at standard delivery and at a declared precision that is not 4-bit (fp8), at its standard rate. The maker’s own precision is not known. Every price dimension · USD per million tokens | Input | $0.450 /M | | --- | --- | | Output | $1.20 /M | | Cached input | $0.100 /M | | Cache write | Unknown /M | | Cache write 1h | Unknown /M | | Reasoning | Unknown /M | ### Who sells it The same weights, different shops. Cheapest is not like-for-like when serving precision differs. 1 provider offers · rates, limits and conditions Rates are USD per million tokens. Endpoint terms can differ even when the quoted price and precision match. A listed parameter is a provider declaration, not a task-success test. | Seller | Input | Output | Precision | Uptime (1d) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Seller DeepInfra deepinfra/fp8 Endpoint terms Cached input /M $0.100 Context limit 524,288 tokens Output limit 262,144 tokens Tools Listed by endpoint Reasoning Listed by endpoint Promotional discount None reported Uptime · last 30 minutes 100.00% | Input $0.450 | Output $1.20 | Precision fp8 | Uptime (1d) 99.99% | ### Independent scores | LMArena Elo | 1413.7 default | | --- | --- | LMArena Elo under CC BY 4.0. Absence of another board is not a score of zero. ### Capability | Context window | 524K | | --- | --- | | Max output | 262K | | Input modes | text, image, audio | | Tool use | yes | | Reasoning | optional | | Open weights | Unknown | ### Provenance | Price source | [openrouter.ai](https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/models) | | --- | --- | | Fetched | 2026-10-06 | | Quality data | verified | Inkling Small is an open-weight multimodal mixture-of-experts model from Thinking Machines Lab, with 12B active parameters out of 276B total. It is positioned as the smaller, more efficient member of... ## Questions this page answers What does Inkling Small cost? $0.450/M in, $1.20/M out in this catalogue, as of the fetch date on this page. That is the API row, not a subscription. Does Inkling Small have an independent quality score? Inkling Small has an LMArena score in this catalogue. What beats Inkling Small? MiMo-V2.6-Pro has an equal-or-higher measured score and an equal-or-lower price, with capability trade-offs. Does this page use Artificial Analysis scores for Inkling Small? No. Artificial Analysis figures are not published here. Quality on this page is LMArena Elo where a score exists; otherwise the row is unrated. MODEL MONUMENT ## Save or share this proof Download proof card · 1200 × 630 Preview and more sharing options Thinking Machines: Inkling Small. Balanced workload. Alternative has a trade-off. Evidence as of 06 Oct 2026. Copy model link Download square card · 1080 × 1080 Copy landscape image Share landscape card ## Related - Higher score and cheaper, with a named trade [MiMo-V2.6-Pro](/models/xiaomi__mimo-v2.6-pro/) - Nearby on the capability axis [Qwen3 235B A22B Thinking 2507](/models/qwen__qwen3-235b-a22b-thinking-2507/) - Same vendor [Inkling](/models/thinkingmachines__inkling/) - Thinking Machines models [Thinking Machines](/providers/thinking-machines/) - Where this model appears [wire](/wire/) - Nearby on the capability axis [Qwen3 Max](/models/qwen__qwen3-max/) - Where this model appears [significance](/significance/) - Nearby on the capability axis [GPT-5.2](/models/openai__gpt-5.2/) - Where this model appears [cheapest-at](/cheapest-at/) ## Badge The verdict as one SVG, for a README or a docs page. It states this model's dominance status at the balanced workload on the LMArena lens, with the date it was computed, and it is rebuilt with the catalogue — so it changes when the verdict changes, including to one you would rather it did not. Markdown Copy [![Inkling Small — Undominated.ai dominance verdict](https://undominated.ai/badge/thinkingmachines__inkling-small.svg)](https://undominated.ai/models/thinkingmachines__inkling-small/) HTML Copy Inkling Small — Undominated.ai dominance verdict Direct file: [https://undominated.ai/badge/thinkingmachines__inkling-small.svg](https://undominated.ai/badge/thinkingmachines__inkling-small.svg) — a static SVG, written by scripts/build-badges.mjs on every build, so the copy you embed is never older than the last deploy. ## Continue your investigation - [Explore model families](/families/) - [Compare a shortlist](/compare/) - [Check a model](/check/) - [Understand the evidence](/methodology/)