Thinking Machines Lab · language model
Inkling Small: pricing, context and benchmarks
Inkling Small is a language model from Thinking Machines Lab released on July 30, 2026. It costs $0.45 per million input tokens and $1.2 per million output tokens, with a 524.3K-token context window. Epoch AI ranks it #57 of 125 rated models.
What you need to know about Inkling Small
Inkling Small was released by Thinking Machines Lab (United States) on July 30, 2026. It accepts text, images, and audio as input and produces text. Its context window reaches 524,288 tokens, larger than 67 % of the models in the registry, and it can write up to 262,144 tokens in one go.
It is a recent model: real-world feedback and independent scores are still scarce.
Inkling Small pricing
On OpenRouter, Inkling Small costs $0.45 per million input tokens and $1.2 per million output tokens. Counting three tokens read for every token written, its average price is $0.638 per million, more expensive than 46 % of paid models (1.2 times cheaper than the median of $0.76).
A concrete example: a task that sends 2,000 tokens (about 1,500 words) and receives a 500-token answer costs $0.0015. At 1,000 tasks a day, budget $45 a month. The price calculator redoes this with your own volumes.
Tokens already sent and cached are billed at $0.1 per million.
Performance and benchmarks
The Epoch Capabilities Index (ECI), which aggregates published results across many benchmarks, gives Inkling Small a score of 150.3 (range 147.2 to 152.1). That places it #57 of 125 rated models.
Scores published by Epoch AI on the benchmarks the site tracks:
| Benchmark | What it measures | Score | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | PhD-level science questions | 88.5 % | Jul 15, 2026 |
| ARC-AGI-1 | visual abstract-reasoning puzzles | 84 % | Jul 15, 2026 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | harder version of the ARC puzzles | 40.1 % | Jul 15, 2026 |
| FrontierMath | research-level maths problems (tiers 1-3) | 46.3 % | Jul 15, 2026 |
| OTIS Mock AIME | maths competition problems | 90 % | Jul 15, 2026 |
| SimpleQA Verified | accuracy on simple facts | 19.1 % | Jul 15, 2026 |
For at least equal performance, Claude Haiku 5.5, GPT-6 Luna, and GLM 5.3 cost at least 30% less.
Features, privacy and local use
- It supports tool calling, so it can drive an AI agent, call APIs or MCP servers.
- It is a reasoning model: it "thinks" before answering, which helps on hard tasks but uses more output tokens.
Its weights are open and downloadable from Hugging Face: you can run it on your own machines without sending your data to a third party.
Other Thinking Machines Lab models
| Model | Released | Avg. price | ECI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inkling | Jul 17, 2026 | $1.76 | 148.4 |
Verdict
Inkling Small scores 60/100 on our grid, which only uses published figures.
Strengths
- Open weights: self-hostable, your data stays with you.
Alternatives
- Qwen3.8 27B$0.78
- Qwen3.6 Plus$0.73
- Qwen3.7 Plus$0.56
- Kimi K2.7 Code$1.28
- Kimi K2.6$1.34
- Qwen3.6 27B$0.69
Comparisons and tools
Learn more
Frequently asked questions
How much does Inkling Small cost?
$0.45 per million input tokens and $1.2 per million output tokens on OpenRouter (checked October 25, 2026). A task with 2,000 tokens read and 500 written costs $0.0015.
How big is Inkling Small's context window?
524,288 tokens, roughly 393,000 words, with a maximum of 262,144 output tokens.
Can Inkling Small run locally?
Yes, its weights are published.
Is Inkling Small suitable for an AI agent?
Technically yes: it supports tool calling. Then check its cost for your volume.
How good is Inkling Small?
Epoch AI ranks it #57 of 125 rated models (ECI 150.3). On GPQA Diamond, it scores 88.5%.
What are the alternatives to Inkling Small?
The closest models on price and performance are Qwen3.8 27B, Qwen3.6 Plus, and Qwen3.7 Plus.
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Neutrality. No affiliate links. No vendor pays to be reviewed, rated or ranked. Reviews are directed by François Chollet, neutral and factual, and every data point is dated and sourced. How we score