# Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Inkling-Small

> Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.5 to 46.5 on the Noometry Index. Inkling-Small costs 6.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5-vs-inkling-small
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 10

## Summary

- They share 10 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher in 5 categories and Inkling-Small in 0 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads 88.7 to 44.9.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is ProofBench: 100% for Claude Sonnet 5.5 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 5.5.
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 524K.
- Inkling-Small has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Thinking Machines Lab |
| Noometry Index | 60.5 | 46.5 |
| Rank | 10 | 57 |
| Context | 1M | 524K |
| Input $/M | $2 | $0.45 |
| Output $/M | $10 | $1.20 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 65.5 (#6)
- Inkling-Small: 43.3 (#80)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1699 | 1408 |
| SciCode | 61% | 48.7% |
| FrontierCode | 52.1% | — |
| CursorBench | 55.5% | — |
| FrontierSWE | 61.9% | — |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1451 |
| ALE-Bench | 1,819 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 44.9 (#14)
- Inkling-Small: —

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 75.5% | — |

## Reasoning

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 52.4 (#29)
- Inkling-Small: 39.0 (#53)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 31.4% | 8.3% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 65% | 6% |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 40.1% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 84% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 18% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1424 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 150.13 |

## Math

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 88.7 (#4)
- Inkling-Small: 44.9 (#65)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 88.8% | 46.3% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 80.5% | 17.1% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 100% | 90% |
| ProofBench | 100% | 6% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1453 |

## Knowledge

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#11)
- Inkling-Small: 48.3 (#71)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 95.6% | 88.5% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 46.5% | 19.1% |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1442 |

## Multimodal

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 53.2 (#5)
- Inkling-Small: 38.4 (#59)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1235 |
| Furniture Assembly | 75% | — |

## Multilingual

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: —
- Inkling-Small: 51.7 (#102)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1400 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1458 |
| LMArena French | — | 1438 |
| LMArena German | — | 1412 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1399 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1355 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1392 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1426 |

## Instruction Following

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: —
- Inkling-Small: 73.9 (#112)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1397 |

## Long Context

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: —
- Inkling-Small: 42.7 (#113)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1401 |

## Writing & Preference

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: —
- Inkling-Small: 59.8 (#102)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1413 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1330 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 1491 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1420 |

## FAQ

### Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 better than Inkling-Small?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.5 to 46.5 on the Noometry Index. Inkling-Small costs 6.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5.5 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 5.5 lists at $2 and $10.

### Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Inkling-Small better for coding?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 65.5 versus 43.3 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 does, with 1M tokens against 524K.

### How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Inkling-Small share?

10 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5.5 has 16 scored results on Noometry and Inkling-Small has 33.