GPT-4o vs Inkling Small
Inkling Small costs 8.3x less per output token than GPT-4o ($1.20 vs $10.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 5 benchmarks have a result for both.
GPT-4o or Inkling Small: which to pick
Only Inkling Small has a coding score, 27.3 on the Vibe Coding Index; GPT-4o has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Compare them on price, context and the boards below.
- Shared results
- 5
- GPT-4o only
- 22
- Inkling Small only
- 79
- Like-for-like categories
- 2 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
No call
Only Inkling Small has a AA Intelligence Index result, 25.7.
Directional only
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Inkling Small has a AA Agentic Index result, 23.5.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Inkling Small has a GPQA Diamond result, 83.6%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Inkling Small has a MMLU Pro result, 85.6%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only GPT-4o has a Design Arena: websites result, 831.
Directional only
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Inkling Small has a Vals Index result, 27.6%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Inkling Small
Inkling Small takes 524K tokens against 128K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Inkling Small
GPT-4o $0.0075, Inkling Small $0.0010 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Inkling Small has the number, $0.16.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- GPT-4o not benchmarked, Inkling Small 27.3 from 4 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Reasoning, 46.4 points apart on average over 4 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- ARC-AGI: GPT-4o 4.5% against Inkling Small 84.0%, 79.5 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- GPT-4o $10.00 against Inkling Small $1.20 per million output tokens, 8.3x apart.
- Context window
- GPT-4o takes 128K 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-4o | Bars | Inkling Small | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reasoning | 0 | 4 | ||
| General | 0 | 1 | ||
| All shared boards | 0 | 5 |
CodingDirectional onlySix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index25 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GPT-4o | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 38.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-4o measured |
| SWE-bench Lite | 38.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-4o measured |
| SWE-bench (full test set) | 18.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-4o measured |
| SWE-bench Multimodal | 30.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-4o measured |
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1409 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| AA Coding Index | Not measured | 52.9 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 85.9% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| 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) | 30.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-4o measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 49.7% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 8.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-4o measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | Not measured | 1450 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | Not measured | 1447 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| 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 | 1.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-4o measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 14 boards here | |||
IntelligenceDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GPT-4o | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | Not measured | 25.7 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | Not measured | 150.3 | Only Inkling Small measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index8 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GPT-4o | 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 | 25.1% | Not measured | Only GPT-4o measured |
| GDPval | 9.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-4o measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 33 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index04
| Benchmark | GPT-4o | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | Not measured | 83.6% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 54.3% | 89.5% | Inkling Small |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 2.4% | 33.3% | Inkling Small |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | Not measured | 88.5% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| ARC-AGI | 4.5% | 84.0% | Inkling Small |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0.0% | 40.1% | Inkling Small |
| Mystery game puzzles | Not measured | 6.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | Not measured | 1423 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | Not measured | 1441 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | Not measured | 1429 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | Not measured | 1251 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | Not measured | 1257 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index8 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GPT-4o | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Math Index | 6.0 | Not measured | Only GPT-4o measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 6.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-4o measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | Not measured | 90.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | Not measured | 46.3% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | Not measured | 17.1% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| ProofBench | Not measured | 6.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: math | Not measured | 1459 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | Not measured | 1441 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index13 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GPT-4o | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | Not measured | 85.6% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 83.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | Not measured | 69.6% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | Not measured | 75.5% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | Not measured | 62.3% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | Not measured | 37.9% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 74.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-4o measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | Not measured | 19.1% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| MMLU | 88.1% | Not measured | Only GPT-4o measured |
| LMArena Text: science | Not measured | 1428 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | Not measured | 1413 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | Not measured | 1415 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | Not measured | 1413 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GPT-4o | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 831 | Not measured | Only GPT-4o measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 882 | Not measured | Only GPT-4o measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 906 | Not measured | Only GPT-4o measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 858 | Not measured | Only GPT-4o measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 868 | Not measured | Only GPT-4o measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 860 | Not measured | Only GPT-4o measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | GPT-4o | 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 | 34.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-4o measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 49.3% | 75.7% | Inkling Small |
| DTBench | 64.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-4o measured |
| LMCA | 16.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-4o measured |
| LMArena Text | Not measured | 1413 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | Not measured | 1399 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | Not measured | 1334 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Vision | Not measured | 1237 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: English | Not measured | 1421 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | Not measured | 1401 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | Not measured | 1464 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: German | Not measured | 1408 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | Not measured | 1401 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | Not measured | 1367 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: French | Not measured | 1435 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | Not measured | 1422 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | Not measured | 1394 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | Not measured | 1428 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | Not measured | 1416 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | Not measured | 1402 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | Not measured | 1357 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | Not measured | 1352 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | Not measured | 1243 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | Not measured | 1292 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | Not measured | 1243 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | Not measured | 1207 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | Not measured | 1205 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 14 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GPT-4o | 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-4o | Thinking Machines Inkling Small |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | OpenAI | Thinking Machines |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | May 13, 2024 | July 30, 2026 |
| Context window | 128K | 524K |
| Input $/Mtok | $2.50 | $0.45 |
| Output $/Mtok | $10.00 | $1.20 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | 27.3 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 4 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | $0.16 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is GPT-4o better than Inkling Small for coding?
Only Inkling Small has a coding score, 27.3 on the Vibe Coding Index; GPT-4o has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Compare them on price, context and the boards below.
Which is cheaper, GPT-4o or Inkling Small?
GPT-4o costs $2.50 per million input tokens and $10.00 per million output tokens; Inkling Small costs $0.45 and $1.20. Cost per solved task is known for Inkling Small only.
Which has the bigger context window, GPT-4o or Inkling Small?
Inkling Small, with 524K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks is the GPT-4o vs Inkling Small comparison based on?
5 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. GPT-4o'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.