Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) vs Inkling 2 Small
Which is better for the money: Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) by Google 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
Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) scores 23.6 points higher (54.2 vs 30.6) but costs 7.2× as much to run the benchmark ($5725 vs $792; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) when you need intelligence above 30.6, and Inkling 2 Small when 30.6 is enough.
| Metric | Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) | Inkling 2 Small | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 54.2 | 30.6 | −43.5% Inkling 2 Small is 43.5% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $5,725.02 | $791.81 | −86.2% Inkling 2 Small is 86.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 10.30s | 20.92s | +103.1% Inkling 2 Small is 103.1% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.30 / $1.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text, Image |
Inkling 2 Small vs Gemini 4 Carbon (Low): 43.5% less intelligence, 86.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 103.1% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 57.40 for $4766.
- Inkling 2 Small is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 52.50 for $718.
Gemini 4 Carbon (Low)Inkling 2 SmallToday's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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