GPT-5 Nano vs Inkling Small
Updated October 21, 2026. 57 benchmarks have a result for both. Coding is ranked on the Vibe Coding Index; every other board is shown as published.
Decision reading
Pick GPT-5 Nano for coding: it scores 34.8 on the Vibe Coding Index against 29.9 for Inkling Small.
Pick Inkling Small when the context window is larger, 524K against 400K tokens, or when what matters is LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) or LMArena Text: coding, where it leads.
- Shared results
- 57
- GPT-5 Nano only
- 28
- Inkling Small only
- 27
- Like-for-like categories
- 6 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
GPT-5 Nano
GPT-5 Nano scores 34.8 against 29.9.
One benchmark behind each score
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Inkling Small
Inkling Small leads, 25.7 against 13.0.
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 63.4%.
Same board, both measured
Math
AIME
No call
Only GPT-5 Nano has a AIME result, 81.2%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
Inkling Small
Inkling Small leads, 85.6% against 76.1%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only GPT-5 Nano has a Design Arena: websites result, 1101.
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 400K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
GPT-5 Nano
GPT-5 Nano $0.0003, Inkling Small $0.0010 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
GPT-5 Nano
GPT-5 Nano $0.109, Inkling Small $0.16.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- GPT-5 Nano 34.8 from 1 benchmark, Inkling Small 29.9 from 1 benchmark.
- Widest category
- Reasoning, 22.9 points apart on average over 12 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- ARC-AGI: GPT-5 Nano 20.7% against Inkling Small 84.0%, 63.3 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- GPT-5 Nano $0.40 against Inkling Small $1.20 per million output tokens, 3.0x apart.
- Context window
- GPT-5 Nano takes 400K 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-5 Nano | Bars | Inkling Small | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 3 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 2 | ||
| Reasoning | 1 | 11 | ||
| Math | 1 | 5 | ||
| Knowledge | 0 | 10 | ||
| General | 0 | 24 | ||
| All shared boards | 2 | 55 |
CodingLike-for-likeFour of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index03
| Benchmark | GPT-5 Nano | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 34.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1409 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| AA Coding Index | Not measured | 52.9 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 70.2% | 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) | 78.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 49.7% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 17.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Terminal-Bench | 21.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| WeirdML | 38.1% | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1351 | 1450 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1345 | 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 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | GPT-5 Nano | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 13.0 | 25.7 | Inkling Small |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 139.2 | 150.3 | Inkling Small |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index7 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GPT-5 Nano | 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 | 36.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 32 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index111
| Benchmark | GPT-5 Nano | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 63.4% | 83.6% | Inkling Small |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 70.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 67.6% | 89.5% | Inkling Small |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 9.5% | 33.3% | Inkling Small |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 69.4% | 88.5% | Inkling Small |
| ARC-AGI | 20.7% | 84.0% | Inkling Small |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 2.6% | 40.1% | Inkling Small |
| Chess puzzles | 22.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 9.0% | 6.0% | GPT-5 Nano |
| VPCT | 37.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1328 | 1423 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1321 | 1441 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1338 | 1429 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1141 | 1251 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1157 | 1257 | Inkling Small |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index15
| Benchmark | GPT-5 Nano | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 81.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| MATH 500 (Vals AI) | 93.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | 89.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| AA Math Index | 83.7 | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 83.7% | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 81.1% | 90.0% | Inkling Small |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 20.0% | 46.3% | Inkling Small |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 2.4% | 17.1% | Inkling Small |
| ProofBench | 12.0% | 6.0% | GPT-5 Nano |
| MATH level 5 | 95.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1317 | 1459 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1326 | 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 index010
| Benchmark | GPT-5 Nano | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 76.1% | 85.6% | Inkling Small |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 50.1% | 83.0% | Inkling Small |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 52.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | Not measured | 69.6% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 67.4% | 75.5% | Inkling Small |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 53.6% | 62.3% | Inkling Small |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 93.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 30.4% | 37.9% | Inkling Small |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 78.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 11.7% | 19.1% | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: science | 1318 | 1428 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1335 | 1413 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1298 | 1415 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1311 | 1413 | Inkling Small |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GPT-5 Nano | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1101 | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1066 | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1045 | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1056 | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 966 | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1084 | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index024
| Benchmark | GPT-5 Nano | 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) | 30.4% | 32.7% | Inkling Small |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 72.9% | 84.1% | Inkling Small |
| Vals Multimodal Index | Not measured | 50.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| IFBench | 67.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 45.0% | 75.7% | Inkling Small |
| DTBench | 62.7% | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| LMCA | 7.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 44.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-5 Nano measured |
| LMArena Text | 1320 | 1413 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1306 | 1399 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1249 | 1334 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision | 1159 | 1237 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: English | 1321 | 1421 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1313 | 1401 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1356 | 1464 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: German | 1327 | 1408 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1227 | 1401 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1269 | 1367 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: French | Not measured | 1435 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1360 | 1422 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1296 | 1394 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1314 | 1428 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1311 | 1416 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1312 | 1402 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1283 | 1357 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1268 | 1352 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1170 | 1243 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1176 | 1292 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1152 | 1243 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1110 | 1207 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | Not measured | 1205 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GPT-5 Nano | 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
GPT-5 Nano costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
GPT-5 Nano costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
GPT-5 Nano 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-5 Nano | Thinking Machines Inkling Small |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | OpenAI | Thinking Machines |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | August 7, 2025 | July 30, 2026 |
| Context window | 400K | 524K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.05 | $0.45 |
| Output $/Mtok | $0.40 | $1.20 |
| Coding index | 34.8 | 29.9 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 1 | 1 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.109 | $0.16 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is GPT-5 Nano better than Inkling Small for coding?
Pick GPT-5 Nano for coding: it scores 34.8 on the Vibe Coding Index against 29.9 for Inkling Small. Pick Inkling Small when the context window is larger, 524K against 400K tokens, or when what matters is LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) or LMArena Text: coding, where it leads.
Which is cheaper, GPT-5 Nano or Inkling Small?
GPT-5 Nano costs $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.40 per million output tokens; Inkling Small costs $0.45 and $1.20. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, GPT-5 Nano costs $0.109 and Inkling Small $0.16.
Which has the bigger context window, GPT-5 Nano or Inkling Small?
Inkling Small, with 524K tokens against 400K.
How many benchmarks is the GPT-5 Nano vs Inkling Small comparison based on?
57 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. GPT-5 Nano's coding index rests on 1 independent benchmark and Inkling Small's on 1. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.