Claude Haiku 5.5 (Low) vs Inkling 2 Small
Which is better for the money: Claude Haiku 5.5 (Low) by Anthropic or Inkling 2 Small by Thinking Machines? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-11-06.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Inkling 2 Small scores 12.0 points higher (30.6 vs 18.6) but costs 20× as much to run the benchmark ($792 vs $39.6; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Inkling 2 Small when you need intelligence above 18.6, and Claude Haiku 5.5 (Low) when 18.6 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Haiku 5.5 (Low) | Inkling 2 Small | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 18.6 | 30.6 | +64.5% Inkling 2 Small is 64.5% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $39.60 | $791.81 | +1899.5% Inkling 2 Small is 20× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 12.32s | 20.92s | +69.8% Inkling 2 Small is 69.8% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.10 / $0.50 | $0.30 / $1.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Inkling 2 Small vs Claude Haiku 5.5 (Low): 64.5% more intelligence, 1899.5% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 69.8% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Haiku 5.5 (Low) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Inkling 2 Small is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 52.50 for $718.
Claude Haiku 5.5 (Low)Inkling 2 SmallToday's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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