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Inkling Small overview
Inkling Small by Thinking Machines
Inkling Small is a multimodal mixture-of-experts model from Thinking Machines Lab, accepting text and image inputs and returning text.
Inkling Small specs
- Model ID
thinkingmachines/inkling-small- Developer
- Thinking Machines
- Context window
- 524,288 tokens
- Max output
- 262,144 tokens
- Input
- Image, Text
- Output
- Text
- API
- OpenAI-compatible, base URL
https://api.aimlapi.com/v1
What is 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 the Inkling family, accepting text and image input and returning text.
Use cases
Thinking Machines documents Inkling-Small as suited for building agentic and tool-use systems, including tasks where the model needs to act on tools while reasoning. It is also documented for coding assistants, with support for multiple coding languages and use in developer-facing coding workflows.
The model is documented as suitable for chatbots and general-purpose conversational use, including instruction-following and other natural language tasks. It is also described for retrieval-augmented generation systems, where it can support applications that combine retrieved information with model responses.
Capabilities
- Reasoning
- Streaming
- Vision
Inkling Small benchmarks by 
Artificial Analysis
See how Inkling Small compares in intelligence, generation speed, cost per task and latency. Data retrieved Nov 3, 2026.
Benchmark results
Compare 13 models available on AI/ML API across 5 independent benchmarks.
Humanity's Last Exam
Expert-written questions across academic subjects.
GPQA Diamond
Graduate-level science questions written to resist web search.
Terminal-Bench 4.0
Agentic tasks completed in a command-line environment.
AA-LCR
Reasoning across long documents of about 100k tokens.
SciCode
Python coding tasks drawn from scientific research.
Inkling Small API pricing
| Usage | Price | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Input | $0.6136 | 1M tokens |
| Output | $1.52 | 1M tokens |
| Cached input | $0.1227 | 1M tokens |
Prices from the AI/ML API price list, checked on Nov 4, 2026.
Inkling Small vs other models: token prices
AI/ML API input and output rates for 5 models, per million tokens.
| Model | Input | Output |
|---|---|---|
 Inkling Small | $0.6136 | $1.52 |
 Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | $0.25 | $1.5 |
 Qwen3.6-Flash | $0.25 | $1.5 |
| Llama 3.1 Euryale 70B v2.2 | $1.53 | $1.53 |
| Inkling | $1.06 | $4.28 |
How to use the Inkling Small API
View docs
Build with your agent
Give your agent the model details, code and documentation.
Paste it into your coding agent to build the integration.
1Get your API key
Create API keyexport AIMLAPI_KEY="8f2b4c7d9a1e6b3f…"2Make your first request
curl 'https://api.aimlapi.com/v1/chat/completions' \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $AIMLAPI_KEY" \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{
"model": "thinkingmachines/inkling-small",
"messages": [
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Write a haiku about the ocean."
}
]
}'import os
import requests
headers = {
"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['AIMLAPI_KEY']}",
"Content-Type": "application/json",
}
payload = {
"model": "thinkingmachines/inkling-small",
"messages": [
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Write a haiku about the ocean."
}
]
}
response = requests.post("https://api.aimlapi.com/v1/chat/completions", headers=headers, json=payload, timeout=120)
response.raise_for_status()
print(response.json())const response = await fetch("https://api.aimlapi.com/v1/chat/completions", {
method: "POST",
headers: {
Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.AIMLAPI_KEY}`,
"Content-Type": "application/json",
},
body: JSON.stringify({
"model": "thinkingmachines/inkling-small",
"messages": [
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Write a haiku about the ocean."
}
]
}),
});
if (!response.ok) throw new Error(`HTTP ${response.status}`);
console.log(await response.json());Models similar to Inkling Small
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Inkling Small FAQ
What is the context window of Inkling Small?
Inkling Small has a 524,288 tokens context window and can return up to 262,144 tokens.
What inputs and outputs does Inkling Small support?
Inkling Small takes image, text as input and returns text.
What is the model ID for Inkling Small?
Use thinkingmachines/inkling-small as the model id. Requests go to https://api.aimlapi.com/v1/chat/completions.
When was Inkling Small released?
Inkling Small became available on July 30, 2026.
How much does Inkling Small cost?
Inkling Small costs $0.6136 input and $1.52 output per 1M tokens on AI/ML API, billed as you go with no subscription.
Does Inkling Small support streaming?
Yes, Inkling Small can stream responses as they are generated.
Can Inkling Small read images?
Yes, Inkling Small accepts image input alongside text.
Who created Inkling Small?
Inkling Small was built by Thinking Machines.