Compare / GPT-5.6 Sol vs Inkling Small

GPT-5.6 Sol vs Inkling Small

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 21 results on 3 sources that measured both models.

GPT-5.6 Sol
OpenAI · profile
Inkling Small
Thinkingmachines · profile
Results compared
21
Shared sources
3

GPT-5.6 Sol or Inkling Small? The short answer

  • Inkling Small is cheaper: $0.64 against $8.00 per million tokens, 13 times less.
  • GPT-5.6 Sol scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 47.0 against 25.7.
  • On our business benchmarks, GPT-5.6 Sol ranks higher for agents and tool use, reasoning and knowledge, writing and sticking to the facts.

At a glance

GPT-5.6 SolInkling Small
Price per million tokens$4.00 in · $20.00 out$0.45 in · $1.20 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$8.00$0.64
Cheapest host, blended$2.00 (OpenAI)–
Intelligence Index47.025.7
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second–173
Context window1,050,000 tokens524,288 tokens
WeightsClosedOpen
Developer based inthe USthe US

Prices are the developer's list price where we have read it, otherwise the typical host on OpenRouter; see every model's price. Intelligence and speed from Artificial Analysis.

Which is better for what

Each model's rank among models available today, for each kind of work, from our own benchmarks and licensed sources. The better rank is in green.

Use caseGPT-5.6 SolInkling Small
Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls 8 of 161 68 of 161
Professional workReal tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects 1 of 51 not measured
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 7 of 195 58 of 195
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 21 of 187 100 of 187
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 47 of 153 126 of 153
Speed under pressureGood decisions against a real clock (fast chess) not measured 4 of 21

Every shared result

BenchmarkMetricGPT-5.6 SolInkling Small
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedConfirmed task successIPS effect estimate 0.03-0.21
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedPraise over complaintIPS effect estimate 0.19-0.21
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedSteerabilityIPS effect estimate 0.07-0.12
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedTool groundingIPS effect estimate 0.00-0.00
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedOverallArena rating 1,4761,425
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedBusiness, management and financeArena rating 1,4851,408
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedCreative writingArena rating 1,4701,313
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedExpert promptsArena rating 1,5341,445
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedInstruction followingArena rating 1,4891,393
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedOverallArena rating 1,4831,405
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedWriting, literature and languageArena rating 1,4831,344
Artificial AnalysisreportedArtificial Analysis Coding Indexindex score 78.352.9
Artificial AnalysisreportedArtificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score 47.025.7
Artificial AnalysisreportedGPQA Diamond% of questions 94.1%89.5%
Artificial AnalysisreportedHumanity's Last Exam% of questions 49.5%33.3%
Artificial AnalysisreportedLong-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions 84.0%75.7%
Artificial AnalysisreportedSciCode% of problems 57.8%49.7%
Artificial AnalysisreportedTerminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks 89.5%55.1%
Artificial AnalysisreportedTerminal-Bench 4.0% of tasks 39.9%1.0%
Artificial AnalysisreportedΤ-bench banking% of tasks 44.3%18.8%
SimpleQA Verified (Epoch AI)reportedCorrect answers% of questions 69.7%19.1%

Bold green marks the better value on that metric. Where a source reports ranges that overlap, the difference may not be meaningful; see the benchmark page for ranges.

Quick answers

Is GPT-5.6 Sol better than Inkling Small?

It depends on the task. Among models available today, on our benchmarks and licensed sources, GPT-5.6 Sol ranks higher for agents and tool use, reasoning and knowledge, writing and sticking to the facts.

Which is cheaper, GPT-5.6 Sol or Inkling Small?

Inkling Small costs $0.64 per million tokens (three input to one output), against $8.00 for GPT-5.6 Sol.

Run GPT-5.6 Sol and Inkling Small on your own prompt

Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.