Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) vs Inkling Small
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) 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 (Medium) scores 2.4 points higher (28.1 vs 25.7) but costs 5.1× as much to run the benchmark ($1218 vs $241; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) when you need intelligence above 25.7, and Inkling Small when 25.7 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) | Inkling Small | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 28.1 | 25.7 | −8.5% Inkling Small is 8.5% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,218.17 | $240.85 | −80.2% Inkling Small is 80.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 9.02s | 12.67s | +40.5% Inkling Small is 40.5% slower |
| 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 (Medium): 8.5% less intelligence, 80.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 40.5% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) 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 (Medium)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-medium/inkling-small · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-medium/inkling-small?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill