Thinking Machines: Inkling API Pricing
Thinking Machines: Inkling costs $1.00 per 1M input tokens and $4.05 per 1M output tokens (cache reads: $0.170). Context window: 524K. Prices verified 2026-10-21 · source
Alternatives to consider
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Token economics
| Token type | Price | vs base input |
|---|---|---|
| Standard input | $1.00 | — |
| Cache read | $0.170 | −83% |
| Output | $4.05 | — |
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 cost you per month?
| Workload | Requests/mo | Avg tokens (in/out) | Est. monthly cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Light chatbot | 10,000 | 800 / 400 | $24.20 |
| Coding agent | 5,000 | 8,000 / 2,000 | $80.50 |
| RAG pipeline | 30,000 | 4,000 / 500 | $180.75 |
| Doc summarizer | 2,000 | 20,000 / 1,000 | $48.10 |
Estimates use list prices without prompt caching. Caching can cut input cost by up to 90% on repeated context.
About Thinking Machines: Inkling
Inkling is an open-weight multimodal mixture-of-experts model from Thinking Machines Lab, with 41B active parameters out of 975B total. It is designed for general-purpose reasoning, coding, agentic and tool-use systems,...
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Popular head-to-heads — see all on the comparisons index.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Thinking Machines: Inkling cost?
Thinking Machines: Inkling costs $1.00 per 1M input tokens and $4.05 per 1M output tokens; cached input tokens cost $0.170 per 1M. Verified 2026-10-21 — provider source.
What is the context window?
524K tokens, with up to 472K output tokens per response. That's roughly 655 pages of text in a single request.
Does it support prompt caching?
Yes — cached input is $0.170/1M, about 83% cheaper than standard input. Agents and RAG workloads with repeated context benefit most.
What's a cheaper alternative?
ScaleDown: Summarize saves about 98% on a typical workload with comparable quality.
Official resources
- Thinking Machines: Inkling 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.