Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Inkling
Updated October 21, 2026. 70 benchmarks have a result for both. Coding is ranked on the Vibe Coding Index; every other board is shown as published.
Decision reading
Pick Claude Sonnet 4.5 for coding: it scores 59.1 on the Vibe Coding Index against 49.7 for Inkling.
Pick Inkling when output tokens cost 3.7x less, or when a solved task costs $0.76 against $1.16.
- Shared results
- 70
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 only
- 22
- Inkling only
- 32
- Like-for-like categories
- 8 of 9
Shared results can support a head-to-head reading. Results only one model has describe coverage, not superiority.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, four public coding benchmarks
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5 scores 59.1 against 49.7.
2 benchmarks behind each score
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Inkling
Inkling leads, 25.0 against 20.7.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
Inkling
Inkling leads, 22.5 against 15.8.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
Inkling
Inkling leads, 87.1% against 81.6%.
Same board, both measured
Math
AIME
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 has a AIME result, 88.2%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads, 87.4% against 86.3%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Inkling
Inkling leads, 1224 against 1190.
Same board, both measured
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Inkling has a Vals Index result, 29.0%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5 takes 1M tokens against 524K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Inkling
Claude Sonnet 4.5 $0.011, Inkling $0.0030 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
Inkling
Claude Sonnet 4.5 $1.16, Inkling $0.76.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 59.1 from 2 benchmarks, Inkling 49.7 from 2 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Agentic work, 11.8 points apart on average over 2 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- ARC-AGI-2: Claude Sonnet 4.5 13.6% against Inkling 36.5%, 22.9 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 $15.00 against Inkling $4.05 per million output tokens, 3.7x apart.
- Context window
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 takes 1M tokens, Inkling 524K.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Bars | Inkling | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 4 | 5 | 1 tie | |
| Intelligence | 0 | 2 | ||
| Agentic work | 0 | 2 | ||
| Reasoning | 5 | 5 | ||
| Math | 2 | 4 | ||
| Knowledge | 5 | 5 | 1 tie | |
| Web design | 3 | 4 | 1 tie | |
| General | 11 | 10 | ||
| All shared boards | 30 | 37 | 3 ties |
CodingLike-for-likeFour of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index45
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 74.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | 67.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LiveBench coding | Not measured | 64.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1394 | 1414 | Inkling |
| AA Coding Index | 52.1 | 52.1 | Tie |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 73.0% | 85.5% | Inkling |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 70.0% | 77.6% | Inkling |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.5% | Only Inkling measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 22.6% | 19.2% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | Not measured | 11.8% | Only Inkling measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | Not measured | 14.9% | Only Inkling measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 47.6% | Only Inkling measured |
| Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 7.3% | Only Inkling measured |
| SkillsBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 26.1% | Only Inkling measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 66.8% | Only Inkling measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 47.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| Terminal-Bench | 46.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| FrontierCode | Not measured | 14.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| FrontierSWE | Not measured | 4.1% | Only Inkling measured |
| GSO-Bench | 14.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| WeirdML | 47.7% | 32.3% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Cybench | 60.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| ALE-Bench | Not measured | 946.0 | Only Inkling measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1488 | 1466 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1473 | 1465 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1386 | 1404 | Inkling |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1399 | 1399 | Inkling |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 20.7 | 25.0 | Inkling |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 146.7 | 148.4 | Inkling |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 15.8 | 22.5 | Inkling |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1060 | 1196 | Inkling |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1050 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1137 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LiveBench research | Not measured | 59.9% | Only Inkling measured |
| LiveBench browser | Not measured | 16.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | Not measured | 14.1% | Only Inkling measured |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | Not measured | 46.6% | Only Inkling measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 15.3% | Only Inkling measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 28.4% | Only Inkling measured |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 3.8% | Only Inkling measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 38.4% | Only Inkling measured |
| APEX-Agents | Not measured | 33.8% | Only Inkling measured |
| METR time horizons | 67.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Remote Labor Index | 2.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| GDPval | 42.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| DeepResearch Bench | 52.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| OSWorld | 62.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $3,839 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 19 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index55
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 81.6% | 87.1% | Inkling |
| LiveBench reasoning | Not measured | 78.3% | Only Inkling measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 79.3% | 78.5% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 87.2% | Only Inkling measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 31.9% | Only Inkling measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 82.3% | 88.3% | Inkling |
| ARC-AGI | 63.7% | 79.5% | Inkling |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 13.6% | 36.5% | Inkling |
| SimpleBench | 54.3% | 50.0% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Chess puzzles | 10.0% | 21.0% | Inkling |
| Mystery game puzzles | 17.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| EBR-bench | 2.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| VPCT | 39.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1462 | 1451 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1483 | 1466 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1471 | 1448 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index24
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 88.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | 94.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 77.8% | 88.9% | Inkling |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 23.9% | 33.3% | Inkling |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 2.4% | 4.9% | Inkling |
| ProofBench | 19.0% | 0.0% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| MATH level 5 | 97.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1449 | 1479 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1462 | 1460 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index55
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 87.4% | 86.3% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 84.1% | 83.0% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 62.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 62.0% | 68.6% | Inkling |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 73.3% | 75.3% | Inkling |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 64.0% | 64.0% | Tie |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 94.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 44.1% | 41.2% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| SimpleQA Verified | 30.7% | 40.3% | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: science | 1448 | 1455 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1444 | 1447 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1451 | 1448 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1440 | 1438 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index34
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1190 | 1224 | Inkling |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1173 | 1200 | Inkling |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1166 | 1166 | Tie |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1167 | 1160 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1158 | 1161 | Inkling |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1183 | 1206 | Inkling |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1114 | 1109 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1204 | 1089 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LiveBench design | Not measured | 58.3% | Only Inkling measured |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index1110
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | Not measured | 29.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| LiveBench data analysis | Not measured | 72.8% | Only Inkling measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 58.5% | Only Inkling measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 36.1% | 36.5% | Inkling |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 84.5% | 85.4% | Inkling |
| Vals Multimodal Index | Not measured | 49.4% | Only Inkling measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | Not measured | 77.3% | Only Inkling measured |
| DTBench | 83.2% | 87.5% | Inkling |
| LMCA | 38.8% | 37.6% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text | 1438 | 1442 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1459 | 1425 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1442 | 1390 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: English | 1450 | 1442 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1425 | 1434 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1460 | 1493 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: German | 1427 | 1445 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1390 | 1429 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1402 | 1403 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: French | 1459 | 1455 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1458 | 1449 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1437 | 1430 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1423 | 1450 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1465 | 1437 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1475 | 1435 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1442 | 1404 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1428 | 1394 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Document | 1450 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 19 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Inkling costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Inkling costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Inkling costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Thinking Machines Inkling |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | Thinking Machines |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | September 29, 2025 | July 17, 2026 |
| Context window | 1M | 524K |
| Input $/Mtok | $3.00 | $1.00 |
| Output $/Mtok | $15.00 | $4.05 |
| Coding index | 59.1 | 49.7 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 2 |
| Cost per solved task | $1.16 | $0.76 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Claude Sonnet 4.5 better than Inkling for coding?
Pick Claude Sonnet 4.5 for coding: it scores 59.1 on the Vibe Coding Index against 49.7 for Inkling. Pick Inkling when output tokens cost 3.7x less, or when a solved task costs $0.76 against $1.16.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Inkling?
Claude Sonnet 4.5 costs $3.00 per million input tokens and $15.00 per million output tokens; Inkling costs $1.00 and $4.05. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Claude Sonnet 4.5 costs $1.16 and Inkling $0.76.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Inkling?
Claude Sonnet 4.5, with 1M tokens against 524K.
How many benchmarks is the Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Inkling comparison based on?
70 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Claude Sonnet 4.5's coding index rests on 2 independent benchmarks and Inkling's on 2. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.