Thinking Machines: Inkling Small API Pricing
Thinking Machines: Inkling Small costs $0.450 per 1M input tokens and $1.20 per 1M output tokens (cache reads: $0.100). Context window: 524K. Prices verified 2026-10-21 · source
Alternatives to consider
88% cheaper with nearly identical quality (24.7 vs 25.7)
+26.3 quality points for 4% more
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Token economics
| Token type | Price | vs base input |
|---|---|---|
| Standard input | $0.450 | — |
| Cache read | $0.100 | −78% |
| Output | $1.20 | — |
Prompt caching stores repeated context server-side: reads cost far less, but writes carry a one-time premium.
Higher effort = deeper thinking = more reasoning tokens billed as output.
What would Thinking Machines: Inkling Small cost you per month?
| Workload | Requests/mo | Avg tokens (in/out) | Est. monthly cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Light chatbot | 10,000 | 800 / 400 | $8.40 |
| Coding agent | 5,000 | 8,000 / 2,000 | $30.00 |
| RAG pipeline | 30,000 | 4,000 / 500 | $72.00 |
| Doc summarizer | 2,000 | 20,000 / 1,000 | $20.40 |
Estimates use list prices without prompt caching. Caching can cut input cost by up to 90% on repeated context.
About Thinking Machines: Inkling Small
Inkling Small is an open-weight multimodal mixture-of-experts model from Thinking Machines Lab, with 12B active parameters out of 276B total. It is positioned as the smaller, more efficient member of...
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Frequently asked questions
How much does Thinking Machines: Inkling Small cost?
Thinking Machines: Inkling Small costs $0.450 per 1M input tokens and $1.20 per 1M output tokens; cached input tokens cost $0.100 per 1M. Verified 2026-10-21 — provider source.
What is the context window?
524K tokens, with up to 262K output tokens per response. That's roughly 655 pages of text in a single request.
Does it support prompt caching?
Yes — cached input is $0.100/1M, about 78% cheaper than standard input. Agents and RAG workloads with repeated context benefit most.
What's a cheaper alternative?
ScaleDown: Summarize saves about 96% on a typical workload with comparable quality.
Official resources
- Thinking Machines: Inkling Small on OpenRouter — live endpoint, pricing source of record.
- Artificial Analysis leaderboard → — independent intelligence and performance rankings.
- Shred your current bill — paste a CSV and see if switching saves money.