Inkling Small vs Ministral 3 14B
Which is better for the money: Inkling Small by Thinking Machines or Ministral 3 14B by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Inkling Small scores 19.7 points higher (25.7 vs 6.0) but costs 6.4× as much to run the benchmark ($241 vs $37.6; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Inkling Small when you need intelligence above 6.0, and Ministral 3 14B when 6.0 is enough.
| Metric | Inkling Small | Ministral 3 14B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 25.7 | 6.0 | −76.7% Ministral 3 14B is 76.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $240.85 | $37.56 | −84.4% Ministral 3 14B is 84.4% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 12.95s | 7.71s | −40.5% Ministral 3 14B is 40.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.30 / $1.20 | $0.20 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech | Text, Image |
Ministral 3 14B vs Inkling Small: 76.7% less intelligence, 84.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 40.5% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Inkling Small is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
- Ministral 3 14B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Medium) scores 29.90 for $31.2.
Inkling SmallMinistral 3 14BToday'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/inkling-small/ministral-3-14b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/inkling-small/ministral-3-14b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill