GPT-4.1 vs Inkling Small
Inkling Small leads GPT-4.1 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 25.7 to 12.7, and Inkling Small costs 6.7x less per output token ($1.20 vs $8.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 54 benchmarks have a result for both.
GPT-4.1 or Inkling Small: which to pick
Only Inkling Small has a coding score, 27.3 on the Vibe Coding Index; GPT-4.1 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick GPT-4.1 for a larger context window (1.05M against 524K tokens) and work measured by LegalBench (Vals AI) or MortgageTax (Vals AI), where it leads.
- Shared results
- 54
- GPT-4.1 only
- 38
- Inkling Small only
- 30
- Like-for-like categories
- 6 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
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, six public coding benchmarks
No call
Only Inkling Small has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Inkling Small
Inkling Small leads, 25.7 against 12.7.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Inkling Small has a AA Agentic Index result, 23.5.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
Inkling Small
Inkling Small leads, 83.6% against 65.4%.
Same board, both measured
Math
AIME
No call
Only GPT-4.1 has a AIME result, 39.6%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
Inkling Small
Inkling Small leads, 85.6% against 80.5%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only GPT-4.1 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1038.
Directional only
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Inkling Small has a Vals Index result, 27.6%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
GPT-4.1
GPT-4.1 takes 1.05M tokens against 524K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Inkling Small
GPT-4.1 $0.0060, Inkling Small $0.0010 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
Inkling Small
GPT-4.1 $0.37, Inkling Small $0.16.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- GPT-4.1 not benchmarked, Inkling Small 27.3 from 4 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Math, 30.1 points apart on average over 4 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- ARC-AGI: GPT-4.1 5.5% against Inkling Small 84.0%, 78.5 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- GPT-4.1 $8.00 against Inkling Small $1.20 per million output tokens, 6.7x apart.
- Context window
- GPT-4.1 takes 1.05M tokens, Inkling Small 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 | GPT-4.1 | Bars | Inkling Small | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 3 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 2 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 11 | ||
| Math | 0 | 4 | ||
| Knowledge | 3 | 7 | ||
| General | 4 | 20 | ||
| All shared boards | 7 | 47 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index03
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aider polyglot | 52.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| SWE-bench Verified | 39.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| SWE-bench Multimodal | 31.1% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1409 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| AA Coding Index | Not measured | 52.9 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 54.7% | 85.9% | Inkling Small |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | Not measured | 82.2% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 19.1% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | Not measured | 13.7% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.5% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | Not measured | 9.3% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 55.1% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| SkillsBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 33.6% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 64.1% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 45.7% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 49.7% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 13.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| WeirdML | 39.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 558.1 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1390 | 1450 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1391 | 1447 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1399 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1398 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | Not measured | 1410 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| SciCode | 4.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 12.7 | 25.7 | Inkling Small |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 136.7 | 150.3 | Inkling Small |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index9 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | Not measured | 23.5 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | Not measured | 41.3% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 15.4% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 25.5% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 2.9% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 31.8% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 47.1% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL) | 54.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| BrowseComp-Plus | 36.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 32 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index011
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 65.4% | 83.6% | Inkling Small |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 72.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 66.6% | 89.5% | Inkling Small |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 4.2% | 33.3% | Inkling Small |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 66.9% | 88.5% | Inkling Small |
| ARC-AGI | 5.5% | 84.0% | Inkling Small |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0.4% | 40.1% | Inkling Small |
| SimpleBench | 27.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Chess puzzles | 3.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | Not measured | 6.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1384 | 1423 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1364 | 1441 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1393 | 1429 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1215 | 1251 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1248 | 1257 | Inkling Small |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 52.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index04
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 39.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| MATH 500 (Vals AI) | 87.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | 87.7% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| AA Math Index | 34.7 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 34.7% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 38.3% | 90.0% | Inkling Small |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 6.0% | 46.3% | Inkling Small |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | Not measured | 17.1% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| ProofBench | Not measured | 6.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| MATH level 5 | 83.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1369 | 1459 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1360 | 1441 | Inkling Small |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index37
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 80.5% | 85.6% | Inkling Small |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 83.1% | 83.0% | GPT-4.1 |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 69.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 63.0% | 69.6% | Inkling Small |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 75.1% | 75.5% | Inkling Small |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 65.9% | 62.3% | GPT-4.1 |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 91.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | Not measured | 37.9% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 80.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 31.1% | 19.1% | GPT-4.1 |
| GeoBench | 72.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1382 | 1428 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1379 | 1413 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1399 | 1415 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1369 | 1413 | Inkling Small |
| FACTS Benchmark Suite | 45.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 2 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1038 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 997 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1079 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1104 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 849 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1025 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index420
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | Not measured | 27.6% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 59.4% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | Not measured | 32.7% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | Not measured | 84.1% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Vals Multimodal Index | Not measured | 50.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| IFBench | 43.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 68.3% | 75.7% | Inkling Small |
| DTBench | 68.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMCA | 25.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 63.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1383 | 1413 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1367 | 1399 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1363 | 1334 | GPT-4.1 |
| LMArena Vision | 1210 | 1237 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: English | 1392 | 1421 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1370 | 1401 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1382 | 1464 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: German | 1381 | 1408 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1319 | 1401 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1338 | 1367 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: French | 1382 | 1435 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1376 | 1422 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1377 | 1394 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1389 | 1428 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1397 | 1416 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1385 | 1402 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1371 | 1357 | GPT-4.1 |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1365 | 1352 | GPT-4.1 |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1209 | 1243 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1226 | 1292 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1218 | 1243 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1196 | 1207 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: captioning | 1207 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Vision: recognizing things | 1208 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1210 | 1205 | GPT-4.1 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 11 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 | Inkling Small | 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 Small costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Inkling Small costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Inkling Small 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 | OpenAI GPT-4.1 | Thinking Machines Inkling Small |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | OpenAI | Thinking Machines |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | April 14, 2025 | July 30, 2026 |
| Context window | 1.05M | 524K |
| Input $/Mtok | $2.00 | $0.45 |
| Output $/Mtok | $8.00 | $1.20 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | 27.3 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 4 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.37 | $0.16 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is GPT-4.1 better than Inkling Small for coding?
Only Inkling Small has a coding score, 27.3 on the Vibe Coding Index; GPT-4.1 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick GPT-4.1 for a larger context window (1.05M against 524K tokens) and work measured by LegalBench (Vals AI) or MortgageTax (Vals AI), where it leads.
Which is cheaper, GPT-4.1 or Inkling Small?
GPT-4.1 costs $2.00 per million input tokens and $8.00 per million output tokens; Inkling Small costs $0.45 and $1.20. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, GPT-4.1 costs $0.37 and Inkling Small $0.16.
Which has the bigger context window, GPT-4.1 or Inkling Small?
GPT-4.1, with 1.05M tokens against 524K.
How many benchmarks is the GPT-4.1 vs Inkling Small comparison based on?
54 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. GPT-4.1's coding index rests on 0 independent benchmarks and Inkling Small's on 4. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.