Inkling 2 Small vs Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Inkling 2 Small by Thinking Machines or Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) by Mistral? 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 26.3 points higher (30.6 vs 4.3) but costs 18× as much to run the benchmark ($792 vs $43.4; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Inkling 2 Small when you need intelligence above 4.3, and Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) when 4.3 is enough.
| Metric | Inkling 2 Small | Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 30.6 | 4.3 | −85.9% Mistral Small 4 (Reas… is 85.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $791.81 | $43.43 | −94.5% Mistral Small 4 (Reas… is 94.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 20.92s | 16.10s | −23.0% Mistral Small 4 (Reas… is 23.0% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.30 / $1.00 | $0.15 / $0.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) vs Inkling 2 Small: 85.9% less intelligence, 94.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 23.0% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Inkling 2 Small is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 52.50 for $718.
- Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (Low) scores 18.60 for $39.6.
Inkling 2 SmallMistral Small 4 (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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