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AI model comparison

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs Inkling Small

Pricing, context window, benchmarks, and features compared side by side. Or skip the guesswork and send one prompt to both.

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is a sparse mixture-of-experts model from DeepSeek, and the first built on the company's Causal Encoder-Decoder (CED) architecture.

Input / 1M
$0.15
Output / 1M
$0.60
Context
1.05M

Inkling Small is an open-weight multimodal mixture-of-experts model from Thinking Machines Lab, with 12B active parameters out of 276B total.

Input / 1M
$0.45
Output / 1M
$1.20
Context
524K

Comparing image generators? Compare image models

At a glance

Quick verdict

How the two models stack up on the things people ask about most.

Lower price

deepseek logo

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash

2.5x cheaper for a typical chat

Higher intelligence score

thinkingmachines logo

Inkling Small

25.7 vs 24.7 on Artificial Analysis

Larger context window

deepseek logo

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash

1.05M vs 524K tokens

Newer release

deepseek logo

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash

Released September 10, 2026

Benchmarks

Benchmark scores

Independent scores from Artificial Analysis. Higher is better.

Intelligence index

deepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 Flash24.7
thinkingmachines logoInkling Small25.7

Coding index

deepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 FlashNot available
thinkingmachines logoInkling Small52.9

Agentic index

deepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 FlashNot available
thinkingmachines logoInkling Small23.5

Pricing

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs Inkling Small API pricing

Per-token API rates. Cheaper option highlighted.

Metricdeepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 Flashthinkingmachines logoInkling Small
Input tokensPer 1M tokens$0.15$0.45
Output tokensPer 1M tokens$0.60$1.20
Cached input (read)Per 1M tokens$0.00$0.10
Cache writePer 1M tokensNot availableNot available

What it costs in practice

Estimated cost per 1,000 requests at standard rates. Coding and long-document figures also show the cost when the input is already cached.

Chat message

2K in, 500 out

deepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 Flash$0.60
thinkingmachines logoInkling Small$1.50

Coding task

30K in, 4K out

deepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 Flash$6.90$2.49 cached
thinkingmachines logoInkling Small$18.30$7.80 cached

Long document summary

150K in, 2K out

deepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 Flash$23.70$1.65 cached
thinkingmachines logoInkling Small$69.90$17.40 cached

Specs

Context window and capabilities

How much each model can read, how much it can write, and what it accepts as input.

Metricdeepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 Flashthinkingmachines logoInkling Small
Context window1.05M tokens524K tokens
Max output393K tokens262K tokens
Input typesImage, TextAudio, Image, Text
Output typesTextText
Reasoning effort levelsMax, High, Low, NoneMax, High, Medium, Low, Minimal, None
Default reasoning effortHighHigh
Release dateSeptember 10, 2026July 30, 2026

Features

Supported features

API features available for each model.

Metricdeepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 Flashthinkingmachines logoInkling Small
Tool callingSupportedSupported
Structured outputsSupportedNot supported
JSON modeSupportedNot supported
ReasoningSupportedSupported
TemperatureSupportedSupported
Stop sequencesSupportedSupported
Deterministic seedSupportedSupported
Verbosity controlNot supportedNot supported

Our take

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is 2.5x cheaper for a typical chat. Inkling Small scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (25.7 vs 24.7). DeepSeek V4.1 Flash has the larger context window (1.05M vs 524K tokens). The right pick depends on your workload, so the quickest way to settle it is to send the same prompt to both and compare.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Is DeepSeek V4.1 Flash or Inkling Small cheaper?

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is cheaper for a typical chat (2K input tokens and 500 output tokens). DeepSeek V4.1 Flash costs $0.15 per 1M input tokens and $0.60 per 1M output tokens, while Inkling Small costs $0.45 per 1M input tokens and $1.20 per 1M output tokens.

Which has a bigger context window, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash or Inkling Small?

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash supports up to 1.05M tokens of context, compared with 524K for Inkling Small.

Is DeepSeek V4.1 Flash smarter than Inkling Small?

On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash scores 24.7 and Inkling Small scores 25.7, putting Inkling Small ahead. Benchmarks don't capture everything, so the best test is running your own prompts through both.

Can I use DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and Inkling Small at the same time?

Yes. Shortcut Chat sends one prompt to multiple models at once, so you can see DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and Inkling Small answer side by side and keep the better response.

deepseek logothinkingmachines logo

Why choose? Ask both.

Send one prompt to DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and Inkling Small at the same time. Compare the answers side by side and keep the best one.

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