Inkling Small vs Mistral Small 3.1
Which is better for the money: Inkling Small by Thinking Machines or Mistral Small 3.1 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 18.6 points higher (25.7 vs 7.1) but costs 8.7× as much to run the benchmark ($241 vs $27.8; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Inkling Small when you need intelligence above 7.1, and Mistral Small 3.1 when 7.1 is enough.
| Metric | Inkling Small | Mistral Small 3.1 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 25.7 | 7.1 | −72.4% Mistral Small 3.1 is 72.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $240.85 | $27.82 | −88.4% Mistral Small 3.1 is 88.4% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 12.68s | 11.78s | −7.1% Mistral Small 3.1 is 7.1% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.30 / $1.20 | $0.08 / $0.14 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech | Text, Image |
Mistral Small 3.1 vs Inkling Small: 72.4% less intelligence, 88.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 7.1% 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.
- Mistral Small 3.1 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Inkling SmallMistral Small 3.1Today'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/mistral-small-3-1 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/inkling-small/mistral-small-3-1?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill