Claude Opus 5 (Max) vs Inkling Small
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Max) 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.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (Max) scores 25.1 points higher (50.8 vs 25.7) but costs 30× as much to run the benchmark ($7275 vs $241; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Max) when you need intelligence above 25.7, and Inkling Small when 25.7 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Max) | Inkling Small | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 50.8 | 25.7 | −49.4% Inkling Small is 49.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $7,274.74 | $240.85 | −96.7% Inkling Small is 96.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 49.99s | 12.68s | −74.6% Inkling Small is 74.6% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.30 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech |
Inkling Small vs Claude Opus 5 (Max): 49.4% less intelligence, 96.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 74.6% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Inkling Small is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Claude Opus 5 (Max)Inkling SmallToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5/inkling-small · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5/inkling-small?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill