AI model comparison

Inkling vs Grok 4.3

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

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Thinking Machines

Inkling

Inkling is an open-weight multimodal mixture-of-experts model from Thinking Machines Lab, with 41B active parameters out of 975B total.

Input / 1M
$1
Output / 1M
$4.05
Context
524K

Grok 4.3 is a reasoning model from SpaceXAI.

Input / 1M
$1.25
Output / 1M
$2.50
Context
1M

At a glance

Quick verdict

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

Lower price

x-ai logo

Grok 4.3

1.1x cheaper for a typical chat

Higher intelligence score

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Inkling

25 vs 24.9 on Artificial Analysis

Larger context window

x-ai logo

Grok 4.3

1M vs 524K tokens

Newer release

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Inkling

Released July 17, 2026

Benchmarks

Benchmark scores

Independent scores from Artificial Analysis. Higher is better.

Intelligence index

thinkingmachines logoInkling25
x-ai logoGrok 4.324.9

Coding index

thinkingmachines logoInkling52.1
x-ai logoGrok 4.342.2

Agentic index

thinkingmachines logoInkling22.5
x-ai logoGrok 4.315.5

Pricing

Inkling vs Grok 4.3 API pricing

Per-token API rates. Cheaper option highlighted.

Metricthinkingmachines logoInklingx-ai logoGrok 4.3
Input tokensPer 1M tokens$1$1.25
Output tokensPer 1M tokens$4.05$2.50
Cached input (read)Per 1M tokens$0.17$0.20
Cache writePer 1M tokensNot availableNot available
Long-context pricingPer 1M tokens, for very long promptsSame rate at any length$2.50 in / $5 out above 200K
Web searchPer requestNot 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

thinkingmachines logoInkling$4.03
x-ai logoGrok 4.3$3.75

Coding task

30K in, 4K out

thinkingmachines logoInkling$46.20$21.30 cached
x-ai logoGrok 4.3$47.50$16 cached

Long document summary

150K in, 2K out

thinkingmachines logoInkling$158.10$33.60 cached
x-ai logoGrok 4.3$192.50$35 cached

Specs

Context window and capabilities

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

Metricthinkingmachines logoInklingx-ai logoGrok 4.3
Context window524K tokens1M tokens
Max output472K tokens900K tokens
Input typesAudio, Image, TextFile, Image, Text
Output typesTextText
Reasoning effort levelsMax, High, Medium, Low, Minimal, NoneHigh, Medium, Low, None
Default reasoning effortHighLow
Release dateJuly 17, 2026April 30, 2026

Features

Supported features

API features available for each model.

Metricthinkingmachines logoInklingx-ai logoGrok 4.3
Tool callingSupportedSupported
Structured outputsNot supportedSupported
JSON modeNot supportedSupported
ReasoningSupportedSupported
TemperatureSupportedSupported
Stop sequencesSupportedNot supported
Deterministic seedSupportedSupported
Verbosity controlNot supportedNot supported

Our take

Grok 4.3 is 1.1x cheaper for a typical chat. Inkling scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (25 vs 24.9). Grok 4.3 has the larger context window (1M 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 or Grok 4.3 cheaper?

Grok 4.3 is cheaper for a typical chat (2K input tokens and 500 output tokens). Grok 4.3 costs $1.25 per 1M input tokens and $2.50 per 1M output tokens, while Inkling costs $1 per 1M input tokens and $4.05 per 1M output tokens.

Which has a bigger context window, Inkling or Grok 4.3?

Grok 4.3 supports up to 1M tokens of context, compared with 524K for Inkling.

Is Inkling smarter than Grok 4.3?

On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, Inkling scores 25 and Grok 4.3 scores 24.9, putting Inkling ahead. Benchmarks don't capture everything, so the best test is running your own prompts through both.

Can I use Inkling and Grok 4.3 at the same time?

Yes. Shortcut Chat sends one prompt to multiple models at once, so you can see Inkling and Grok 4.3 answer side by side and keep the better response.

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Why choose? Ask both.

Send one prompt to Inkling and Grok 4.3 at the same time. Compare the answers side by side and keep the best one.