Inkling Small
Thinking MachinesOpen weightsApache 2.0Released Jul 30, 2026
On the arena.ai Agents leaderboard, Inkling Small has a Net Improvement of -18.06% (—, rank #58, 95% interval -20.08%–-16.04%). Inkling Small ranks #160 on the LMArena Text leaderboard (style control) with an Arena score of 1405.4 (±4.5, 37,610 votes). Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 12.9. API price: $0.30 input / $1.20 output per 1M tokens. Context: 524K. Nearest rivals: Inkling 2 Small (1411.8) above and Solar Pro 4 (1387.5) below.
Quick answer
- Agents leaderboard
- #58 of 56 · -18.06% success
- Text (LMArena)
- #160 · 1405.4
- 17NAS overall
- #54 of 55
- API price (in / out)
- $0.30 / $1.20 per 1M tokens
- Closest rival
- Inkling 2 Small · 1411.8
- Data updated
- Nov 15, 2026 · synced daily
Sources: arena.ai, LMArena, Artificial Analysis, OpenRouter
Key metrics
Models ranked nearby
Sorted by Arena score| # | Model | Arena | Intel. | Output $ | tok/s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 73 |  Claude Haiku 5.5 | 1421.2 | 36.5 | $0.50 | 235 |
| 74 |  Mistral Large 4 | 1420.4 | 26.1 | $2.10 | 95 |
| 75 | TInkling 2 Small | 1411.8 | 30.6 | $1.00 | 103 |
| 76 | TInkling SmallThis page | 1405.4 | 12.9 | $1.20 | 199 |
| 77 | USolar Pro 4 | 1387.5 | 14.2 | $1.20 | 79 |
| 78 |  Qwen3 Coder 480B | 1387.4 | – | $1.00 | – |
| 79 | Qwen2.5 72B | 1302.9 | – | $0.50 | 31 |
More from Thinking Machines
| # | Model | Arena | Intel. | Output $ | tok/s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 61 | TInkling | 1442.5 | 12.5 | $4.05 | 178 |
| 75 | TInkling 2 Small | 1411.8 | 30.6 | $1.00 | 103 |
Pricing
- Official API list price: $0.30 input and $1.20 output per 1M tokens (USD).
- At a typical 3:1 input-to-output ratio, the blended cost is about $0.53 per 1M tokens.
- Among 95 models with an output price, it is the #22 cheapest.
- The cheapest OpenRouter route charges $0.45 input / $1.20 output.
Sources & methodology
On the arena.ai Agents leaderboard, Inkling Small has a Net Improvement of -18.06% (—, rank #58, 95% interval -20.08%–-16.04%).
- arena.ai Agents — agent Net Improvement, 95% interval, sessions and rank (via the public Hugging Face dataset, CC BY 4.0).
- LMArena — Arena score (Text leaderboard with style control, the same view arena.ai shows by default), 95% confidence interval, votes and rank.
- Artificial Analysis — Intelligence / Coding Index, output speed and latency (medians).
- OpenRouter — Route prices, context length and listing date.
Arena scores use the Bradley-Terry model (not Elo); ± is the half-width of the 95% confidence interval. Latency figures are Artificial Analysis medians; for reasoning models, time to first token and to first answer include the thinking phase. Data syncs daily at 14:20 (UTC+8).
Limits: Arena scores come from anonymous users voting on chats, so they reflect conversational preference rather than agent or coding benchmarks; with few votes the interval is wide and ranks move. Prices and speeds change as providers update them.
FAQ
How does Inkling Small do on the Agents leaderboard?
On the arena.ai Agents leaderboard, Inkling Small has a Net Improvement of -18.06% (—, rank #58, 95% interval -20.08%–-16.04%).
What rank is Inkling Small right now?
Inkling Small is #76 on our leaderboard of 80 scored models (Arena score 1405.4); its raw LMArena rank is #160.
What does Inkling Small cost via API?
Input $0.30 / output $1.20 per 1M tokens (official API list price; the OpenRouter quote when no official price is available). At a typical 3:1 input-to-output ratio, the blended cost is about $0.53 per 1M tokens.
How fast is Inkling Small?
Artificial Analysis measures about 199 output tokens per second, 2.1 s to the first token and 12 s to the first answer token; it is a reasoning model, so latency includes thinking time.
How close is Inkling Small to the models ranked next to it?
It is 6.4 points behind Inkling 2 Small (1411.8) and 17.9 points ahead of Solar Pro 4 (1387.5); gaps smaller than the confidence interval (±4.5) are not significant.
Is Inkling Small open source? Can it be self-hosted?
Inkling Small is an open-weights model (license: Apache 2.0); you can download the weights and self-host.
What is the context length of Inkling Small?
524K (524,288 tokens, as listed on OpenRouter).
Inkling Small vs Inkling 2 Small: which is better?
On the LMArena Text leaderboard Inkling Small scores 1405.4 and Inkling 2 Small scores 1411.8 (a 6.4-point gap, within the confidence interval, so not significant). Agent task success: Inkling Small -18.06%, Inkling 2 Small 2.51%. On price, Inkling Small costs $1.20 and Inkling 2 Small $1.00 per 1M output tokens.
Is there a cheaper model close to Inkling Small?
Among models within 15 Text points, none is currently more than 30% cheaper than Inkling Small on output price.
Where does the Inkling Small data come from and how often is it updated?
Agent success rates come from the arena.ai Agents leaderboard (CC BY 4.0), Text scores from LMArena, intelligence and speed from Artificial Analysis, and prices and context from official list prices and OpenRouter. 17NAS syncs daily at 06:20 UTC; this page was last updated Nov 15, 2026.