Inkling Small vs Ministral 3 8B
Which is better for the money: Inkling Small by Thinking Machines or Ministral 3 8B by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Inkling Small scores 20.2 points higher (25.7 vs 5.5) but costs 8.8× as much to run the benchmark ($241 vs $27.5; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Inkling Small when you need intelligence above 5.5, and Ministral 3 8B when 5.5 is enough.
| Metric | Inkling Small | Ministral 3 8B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 25.7 | 5.5 | −78.6% Ministral 3 8B is 78.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $240.85 | $27.47 | −88.6% Ministral 3 8B is 88.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 12.95s | 4.96s | −61.7% Ministral 3 8B is 61.7% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.30 / $1.20 | $0.15 / $0.15 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech | Text, Image |
Ministral 3 8B vs Inkling Small: 78.6% less intelligence, 88.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 61.7% 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 8B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Inkling SmallMinistral 3 8BToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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