AI model comparison
Inkling Small vs Grok 4.20
Pricing, context window, benchmarks, and features compared side by side. Or skip the guesswork and send one prompt to both.
Thinking Machines
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.
- Input / 1M
- $0.45
- Output / 1M
- $1.20
- Context
- 524K
xAI
Grok 4.20
Grok 4.20 is a reasoning model from SpaceXAI with industry-leading speed and agentic tool calling capabilities.
- Input / 1M
- $1.25
- Output / 1M
- $2.50
- Context
- 2M
At a glance
Quick verdict
How the two models stack up on the things people ask about most.
Lower price
Inkling Small
2.5x cheaper for a typical chat
Higher intelligence score
Tie
25.7 vs 25.7 on Artificial Analysis
Larger context window
Grok 4.20
2M vs 524K tokens
Newer release
Inkling Small
Released July 30, 2026
Benchmarks
Benchmark scores
Independent scores from Artificial Analysis. Higher is better.
Intelligence index
Coding index
Agentic index
Pricing
Inkling Small vs Grok 4.20 API pricing
Per-token API rates. Cheaper option highlighted.
| Metric | ||
|---|---|---|
| Input tokensPer 1M tokens | $0.45 | $1.25 |
| Output tokensPer 1M tokens | $1.20 | $2.50 |
| Cached input (read)Per 1M tokens | $0.10 | $0.20 |
| Cache writePer 1M tokens | Not available | Not available |
| Long-context pricingPer 1M tokens, for very long prompts | Same rate at any length | $2.50 in / $5 out above 200K |
| Web searchPer request | Not available | $0.005 |
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
Coding task
30K in, 4K out
Long document summary
150K in, 2K out
Specs
Context window and capabilities
How much each model can read, how much it can write, and what it accepts as input.
| Metric | ||
|---|---|---|
| Context window | 524K tokens | 2M tokens |
| Max output | 262K tokens | 1.80M tokens |
| Input types | Audio, Image, Text | File, Image, Text |
| Output types | Text | Text |
| Reasoning effort levels | Max, High, Medium, Low, Minimal, None | Not available |
| Default reasoning effort | High | Not available |
| Release date | July 30, 2026 | March 31, 2026 |
Features
Supported features
API features available for each model.
| Metric | ||
|---|---|---|
| Tool calling | Supported | Supported |
| Structured outputs | Not supported | Supported |
| JSON mode | Not supported | Supported |
| Reasoning | Supported | Supported |
| Temperature | Supported | Supported |
| Stop sequences | Supported | Not supported |
| Deterministic seed | Supported | Supported |
| Verbosity control | Not supported | Not supported |
Keep exploring
More on these models
Other head-to-heads, the full model page, and the alternatives list for each model.
- Grok 4.20 vs Grok Build 0.1
- Grok 4.20 vs Kimi K2.6
- Grok 4.20 vs Qwen3.6 Plus
- Grok 4.20 vs GLM 5 Turbo
- Grok 4.20 vs Gemini 3 Flash Preview
- Grok 4.20 vs GLM 5.1
- Grok 4.20 vs Kimi K2.7 Code
- Grok 4.20 vs Qwen3.7 Plus
- Grok 4.20 vs Inkling
- Grok 4.20 vs Grok 4.3
- Grok 4.20 vs DeepSeek V4 Flash 0423
- Grok 4.20 vs Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
Our take
Inkling Small is 2.5x cheaper for a typical chat. Grok 4.20 has the larger context window (2M 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 Inkling Small or Grok 4.20 cheaper?
Inkling Small is cheaper for a typical chat (2K input tokens and 500 output tokens). Inkling Small costs $0.45 per 1M input tokens and $1.20 per 1M output tokens, while Grok 4.20 costs $1.25 per 1M input tokens and $2.50 per 1M output tokens.
Which has a bigger context window, Inkling Small or Grok 4.20?
Grok 4.20 supports up to 2M tokens of context, compared with 524K for Inkling Small.
Is Inkling Small smarter than Grok 4.20?
On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, Inkling Small scores 25.7 and Grok 4.20 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 Inkling Small and Grok 4.20 at the same time?
Yes. Shortcut Chat sends one prompt to multiple models at once, so you can see Inkling Small and Grok 4.20 answer side by side and keep the better response.
Why choose? Ask both.
Send one prompt to Inkling Small and Grok 4.20 at the same time. Compare the answers side by side and keep the best one.