AI Models · Open-Source vs Paid

THInkling Small Open vs GPT-4o (batch) Paid

Inkling Small vs GPT-4o (batch) compared — price per token, context window, multimodality, openness and which to choose. Can the open-source model replace the paid one? Full 2026 breakdown.

GPT-4o (batch) — full profile ›

Prices & specs refreshed from live data · olud.ai

Open-model prices = cheapest provider via OpenRouter; official maker rates may be higher.

THInkling SmallOpenThinkingmachines

$0.45 /M input
$1.2 /M outputNo per-token fees if you self-host

TypeOpen-weight

Context window1M tokens

MultimodalYes

Self-hostYes

GPT-4o (batch)PaidOpenAI

$1.25 /M input
$5 /M outputManaged API (no infra to run)

TypeProprietary

Context window128K tokens

MultimodalYes

Self-hostNo

Choose Inkling Small if you want to self-host, keep your data private and skip per-token fees — it's open-weight and runs on your own hardware. Choose GPT-4o (batch) if you want frontier capability through a managed API with zero infrastructure to run.

Inkling Small vs GPT-4o (batch) specs

Spec	Inkling Small	GPT-4o (batch)	Winner
Maker	Thinkingmachines	OpenAI	–
Type	Open-weight	Proprietary	THInkling Small
Context window	1M tokens	128K tokens	THInkling Small
Input price	$0.45/M · free self-host	$1.25/M	THInkling Small
Output price	$1.2/M · free self-host	$5/M	THInkling Small
Vision / multimodal	Yes	Yes	= Tie
Tool / function calling	Yes	Yes	= Tie
Self-hostable	Yes	No (API only)	THInkling Small
License	Open weights	Proprietary	THInkling Small

Price gap & when to choose each

4.2×cheaper per output token

Inkling Small is ~4.2× cheaper than GPT-4o (batch) on output tokens ($1.2 vs $5 per M tokens).

THChoose Inkling Small if…

You want to self-host or run on your cloud
You need the longer 1M context window
You prioritize data privacy & control
You want the lowest operating costs
You are building open or reproducible AI

Choose GPT-4o (batch) if…

You want frontier performance through a managed API
You value reliability & ecosystem
You don't want to manage infrastructure

Feature comparison

Capability	Inkling Small	GPT-4o (batch)
Open weights (downloadable)	✓	✗
Self-hostable	✓	✗
Runs fully offline	✓	✗
Vision / multimodal	✓	✓
Tool / function calling	✓	✓
1M+ context window	✓	✗

Benchmarks: Inkling Small vs GPT-4o (batch)

Independent benchmark scores measured by Artificial Analysis. Higher is better (except latency).

Inkling Small

GPT-4o (batch)

Intelligence index

26.1

Coding index

52.9

–

GPQA

89.5%

65.5%

Humanity's Last Exam

33.3%

Long Context Reasoning

75.7%

–

SciCode

49.7%

–

τ-Bench Banking

18.8%

–

Terminal-Bench

55.1%

–

Math index

–

25.7

MMLU-Pro

–

80.3%

LiveCodeBench

–

42.5%

MATH-500

–

89.3%

AIME

–

32.7%

AIME 2025

–

25.7%

Speed

156.9 tok/s

0 tok/s

Latency

1.9s

Intelligence per $

49.7

–

Benchmark data by Artificial Analysis.

How Inkling Small and GPT-4o (batch) score

🏆 Best value & openness: Inkling Small (4.9 vs 3.0 / 5)

Criterion	Inkling Small	GPT-4o (batch)
Cost-efficiency	4.5	4.0
Context window	5.0	3.5
Openness	5.0	1.5
Self-hosting	5.0	1.0
Multimodality	5.0	5.0

Scores come from live data — output price (cost), context length, open vs closed weights (openness & self-hosting) and vision/tool support (multimodality). Raw task quality isn't scored here; it depends on your benchmark — see the verdict.

What each model is

Inkling Small Open

Thinkingmachines · Open-weight

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...

GPT-4o (batch) Paid

OpenAI · Proprietary

GPT-4o ("o" for "omni") is OpenAI's latest AI model, supporting both text and image inputs with text outputs. It maintains the intelligence level of [GPT-4 Turbo](/models/openai/gpt-4-turbo) while being twice as...

Other models in these families

These variants are tracked but not compared here — one page per family keeps the comparison readable.

Other variants tracked

Inkling Small (batch)Inkling Small (free)InklingInkling (batch)Inkling (free)

Frequently asked questions

Is Inkling Small as good as GPT-4o (batch)?

Inkling Small is open-weight and competitive on many tasks, but GPT-4o (batch) may still lead on the hardest reasoning and agentic work. The gap keeps narrowing — benchmark both on your actual use case before deciding.

Can I run Inkling Small locally?

Yes. Inkling Small has open weights, so you can self-host it on your own GPUs or run it via a low-cost API. GPT-4o (batch) is API-only and cannot be self-hosted.

How much cheaper is Inkling Small?

Inkling Small costs $1.2/M output vs $5/M for GPT-4o (batch) — roughly 4x cheaper via API, and free if you self-host.

Inkling Small vs GPT-4o (batch) — which should I pick in 2026?

Choose Inkling Small if you want to self-host, keep your data private and skip per-token fees — it's open-weight and runs on your own hardware. Choose GPT-4o (batch) if you want frontier capability through a managed API with zero infrastructure to run.

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