Grok 4.5 vs Inkling-Small: Specs & Benchmark Comparison
Grok 4.5 is developed by xAI, while Inkling-Small comes from Thinking Machines Lab. Both were released in July 2026. Inkling-Small has a published size of about 276 billion parameters; xAI has not disclosed the parameter count of Grok 4.5.
The two models share 5 published benchmarks. Grok 4.5 leads on 5 of them. The widest gaps are on Terminal-Bench 2.1, where Grok 4.5 scores 83.0% against 64.7%; Tau3 Banking, where Grok 4.5 scores 33.0% against 15.5%. Averaged across everything we track, Grok 4.5 sits at 52.9% and Inkling-Small at 60.3%.
Inkling-Small is the cheaper API at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens, roughly 7 times cheaper than Grok 4.5 at $2 and $6. Grok 4.5 takes the larger context window at 500K tokens, compared with 256K for Inkling-Small. Grok 4.5 accepts text and images as input, while Inkling-Small accepts text, images, and audio. On tooling, only Grok 4.5 supports function calling and only Grok 4.5 offers structured output.
| Characteristic | Grok 4.5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| Company | xAI | Thinking Machines Lab |
| Release Date | July 16, 2026 | July 30, 2026 |
| Parameters | — | 276B |
| Multimodal | Yes | Yes |
| Context (input) | 500K | 256K |
| Context (output) | — | 256K |
| Input Price / 1M | $2.00 | $0.30 |
| Output Price / 1M | $6.00 | $1.20 |
| Average Score | 52.9% | 60.3% |
| Benchmarks | ||
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 83.0% | 64.7% |
| Tau3 Banking | 33.0% | 15.5% |
| Artificial Analysis | 54.0% | 40.0% |
| SWE-Bench Pro | 65.0% | 55.9% |
| GPQA | 93.0% | 89.5% |
Visual Benchmark Comparison
Verdict
Inkling-Small leads in 2 out of 4 comparison categories.
Both models show comparable average scores: Grok 4.5 — 0.5, Inkling-Small — 0.6.
Inkling-Small is 5.3x cheaper: input $0.30/1M vs $2.00/1M tokens.
Grok 4.5 supports a larger context: 500K vs 256K tokens.
Inkling-Small is newer: released 7/30/2026 vs 7/16/2026.
More About These Models
Related Comparisons
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is better for coding — Grok 4.5 or Inkling-Small?
Which model is cheaper — Grok 4.5 or Inkling-Small?
Which has a larger context window — Grok 4.5 or Inkling-Small?
The Grok 4.5 and Inkling-Small comparison is updated for 2026. Data includes benchmark results, API pricing, context window size and other specifications. For more detailed information, visit the Grok 4.5 or Inkling-Small page. See also the complete list of AI model comparisons.