Claude Sonnet 5 (High) vs Inkling Small
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (High) by Anthropic or Inkling Small by Thinking Machines? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5 (High) scores 6.0 points higher (31.7 vs 25.7) but costs 8.7× as much to run the benchmark ($2086 vs $241; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5 (High) when you need intelligence above 25.7, and Inkling Small when 25.7 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (High) | Inkling Small | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 31.7 | 25.7 | −18.9% Inkling Small is 18.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,086.04 | $240.85 | −88.5% Inkling Small is 88.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 15.10s | 12.67s | −16.1% Inkling Small is 16.1% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.30 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech |
Inkling Small vs Claude Sonnet 5 (High): 18.9% less intelligence, 88.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 16.1% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5 (High) 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 Sonnet 5 (High)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-sonnet-5-high/inkling-small · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-high/inkling-small?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill