Model comparison
Claude Sonnet 5 vs Inkling-Small
Claude Sonnet 5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.5 to 46.5 on the Noometry Index. Inkling-Small costs 6.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 31 shared benchmarks.
Summary
- They share 31 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 5 scores higher in 9 categories and Inkling-Small in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Claude Sonnet 5 leads 66.1 to 44.9.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is ProofBench: 77% for Claude Sonnet 5 and 6% for Inkling-Small.
- Inkling-Small is cheaper at $0.45 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $10 for Claude Sonnet 5.
- Claude Sonnet 5 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 524K.
- Inkling-Small has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Claude Sonnet 5 | Inkling-Small | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Thinking Machines Lab |
| Noometry Index | 54.5 | 46.5 |
| Released | 2026-06-29 | 2026-07-15 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1M | 524K |
| Max output | 128K | 1.05M |
| Input $ / M tokens | $2 | $0.45 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $10 | $1.20 |
| Results tracked | 51 | 33 |
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Category by category
Coding Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 55.5 (#20), Inkling-Small: 43.3 (#80)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1540 | 1408 |
| SciCode | 53.6% | 48.7% |
| LMArena Coding | 1483 | 1451 |
| DeepSWE | 53.8% | — |
| FrontierCode | 42.7% | — |
| CursorBench | 34.1% | — |
| GSO | 37.3% | — |
| WeirdML | 68.8% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 1,463 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5: 42.7 (#16), Inkling-Small: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 54.5% | — |
| GBAEval | 65.3% | — |
| LMArena Search | 1194 | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 6,378 | — |
Reasoning Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 48.2 (#37), Inkling-Small: 39.0 (#53)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 16.9% | 8.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | 35% | 18% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1461 | 1424 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 35% | 6% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 156.34 | 150.13 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 40.1% |
| SimpleBench | 60.6% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 75.1% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 84% |
| DTBench | 92.5% | — |
| LMCA | 50% | — |
| Surface Evolver Bench | 60% | — |
| Bench to the Future 3 | 0.14 | — |
| ForecastBench | 61.1 | — |
Math Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 66.1 (#21), Inkling-Small: 44.9 (#65)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 65.6% | 46.3% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 29.3% | 17.1% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 94.7% | 90% |
| ProofBench | 77% | 6% |
| LMArena Math | 1467 | 1453 |
Knowledge Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 55.7 (#42), Inkling-Small: 48.3 (#71)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 90.5% | 88.5% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 33.7% | 19.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1491 | 1442 |
Multimodal Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 42.4 (#26), Inkling-Small: 38.4 (#59)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1275 | 1235 |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 24.9% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1466 | — |
Multilingual Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 54.0 (#55), Inkling-Small: 51.7 (#102)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1431 | 1400 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1475 | 1458 |
| LMArena French | 1457 | 1438 |
| LMArena German | 1448 | 1412 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1422 | 1399 |
| LMArena Korean | 1411 | 1355 |
| LMArena Russian | 1452 | 1392 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1436 | 1426 |
Instruction Following Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 76.6 (#39), Inkling-Small: 73.9 (#112)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1453 | 1397 |
Long Context Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 44.8 (#53), Inkling-Small: 42.7 (#113)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1464 | 1401 |
Writing & Preference Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 69.4 (#24), Inkling-Small: 59.8 (#102)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1443 | 1413 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1416 | 1330 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1794 | 1491 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1454 | 1420 |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1236 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Sonnet 5 better than Inkling-Small?
Claude Sonnet 5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.5 to 46.5 on the Noometry Index. Inkling-Small costs 6.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5 or Inkling-Small?
Inkling-Small is cheaper. It lists at $0.45 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 5 lists at $2 and $10.
Is Claude Sonnet 5 or Inkling-Small better for coding?
Claude Sonnet 5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 55.5 versus 43.3 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Claude Sonnet 5 does, with 1M tokens against 524K.
How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5 and Inkling-Small share?
31 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5 has 51 scored results on Noometry and Inkling-Small has 33.