Compare / o3 vs Inkling Small

o3 vs Inkling Small

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 14 results on 3 sources that measured both models.

o3
OpenAI · profile
Inkling Small
Thinkingmachines · profile
Results compared
14
Shared sources
3

o3 or Inkling Small? The short answer

  • Inkling Small is cheaper: $0.64 against $3.50 per million tokens, 5.5 times less.
  • Inkling Small scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 25.7 against 20.2.
  • Inkling Small writes faster: 173 tokens a second against 126.
  • On our business benchmarks, o3 ranks higher for agents and tool use, writing and sticking to the facts.
  • On our business benchmarks, Inkling Small ranks higher for reasoning and knowledge.

At a glance

o3Inkling Small
Price per million tokens$2.00 in · $8.00 out$0.45 in · $1.20 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$3.50$0.64
Cheapest host, blended––
Intelligence Index20.225.7
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second126173
Context window200,000 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 caseo3Inkling Small
Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls 13 of 161 68 of 161
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 95 of 195 58 of 195
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 49 of 187 100 of 187
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 91 of 153 126 of 153
Speed under pressureGood decisions against a real clock (fast chess) not measured 4 of 21

Every shared result

BenchmarkMetrico3Inkling Small
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedOverallArena rating 1,4051,425
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedBusiness, management and financeArena rating 1,4261,408
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedCreative writingArena rating 1,3831,313
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedExpert promptsArena rating 1,4491,445
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedInstruction followingArena rating 1,4031,393
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedOverallArena rating 1,4321,405
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedWriting, literature and languageArena rating 1,3961,344
Artificial AnalysisreportedArtificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score 20.225.7
Artificial AnalysisreportedGPQA Diamond% of questions 82.7%89.5%
Artificial AnalysisreportedHumanity's Last Exam% of questions 20.1%33.3%
Artificial AnalysisreportedLong-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions 74.7%75.7%
Artificial AnalysisreportedOutput speedtokens per second 126173
Artificial AnalysisreportedTime to first answer tokenseconds 3.9613.6
SimpleQA Verified (Epoch AI)reportedCorrect answers% of questions 49.4%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 o3 better than Inkling Small?

It depends on the task. Among models available today, on our benchmarks and licensed sources, o3 ranks higher for agents and tool use, writing and sticking to the facts; Inkling Small ranks higher for reasoning and knowledge.

Which is cheaper, o3 or Inkling Small?

Inkling Small costs $0.64 per million tokens (three input to one output), against $3.50 for o3.

Which is faster, o3 or Inkling Small?

Inkling Small writes about 173 tokens a second on its usual API, against 126 for o3 (Artificial Analysis).

Run o3 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.