Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) vs Inkling Small
Which is better for the money: Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) by Anthropic or Inkling Small by Thinking Machines? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick Inkling Small
Inkling Small vs Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning): 24.2% more intelligence, 84.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 38.6% faster end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) | Inkling Small | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 20.7 | 25.7 | +24.2% Inkling Small is 24.2% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,501.22 | $240.85 | −84.0% Inkling Small is 84.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 20.86s | 12.80s | −38.6% Inkling Small is 38.6% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $3.00 / $15.0 | $0.30 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Inkling Small is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning)Inkling SmallToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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