text model comparison
ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview vs Inkling 2 Small
ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview and Inkling 2 Small are both current text models, from Baidu and Thinking Machines Lab. ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview is 7% cheaper per 1M input tokens than Inkling 2 Small, $0.28 vs $0.30. ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview has the larger context window, 1,000,000 vs 262,144 tokens.
- Lower price per 1M input tokens
- ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview$0.28 against $0.30
- Longer context window
- ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview1M tokens against 262K tokens
- Newer release
- ERNIE 5.5 Flash PreviewNov 11, 2026 against Nov 5, 2026
Data verified November 11, 2026 · Dataset 2026-11-11
Side by side
ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview and Inkling 2 Small, line by line
Prices in effect today, compared at the same tier wherever both list one. The better value in each row is highlighted.
| Fact | ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview | Inkling 2 Small |
|---|---|---|
| Price | ||
| Price per 1M input tokens | $0.28 (better) | $0.30 |
| Price per 1M output tokens | $1.13 | $1 (better) |
| Independent benchmarks | ||
| Arena Text | Not measured | 1412 Elo (#42 of 48) |
| Arena WebDev | Not measured | 1646 Elo (#16 of 44) |
| Specs | ||
| Provider | Baidu | Thinking Machines Lab |
| Release date | November 11, 2026 | November 5, 2026 |
| Access | API only | API only |
| Context window | 1,000,000 tokens | 262,144 tokens |
| Max output | 1,000,000 tokens | Not reported |
| Input | text | text, image |
| Output | text | text |
No independent benchmark has scored both models yet. Each rank counts the current models scored on that benchmark.
Scores:Arena · 2026-11-11
Charts
Against every current text model
Where ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview and Inkling 2 Small land among the current models of their task, on every independent benchmark, on price and on context.
Where each stands
Only Inkling 2 Small has a current Arena Text score: #42 of 48. Each bar is the share of current models it beats.
Independent benchmarks
Arena Text
ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview: Not scored
Inkling 2 Small:#42of 48
1,412 Elo · ahead of 13%
Arena WebDev
ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview: Not scored
Inkling 2 Small:#16of 44
1,646 Elo · ahead of 65%
Price and context
Price per 1M input tokens
ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview:#12of 57
$0.28 · cheaper than 80%
Inkling 2 Small:#13of 57
$0.30 · cheaper than 71%
Price per 1M output tokens
ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview:#12of 57
$1.13 · cheaper than 80%
Inkling 2 Small:#11of 57
$1 · cheaper than 82%
Context window
ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview:#29of 67
1M tokens · longer than 24%
Inkling 2 Small:#57of 67
262K tokens · longer than 12%
Quality against price
Inkling 2 Small scores 1,412 at $0.475 (blended price per 1M tokens). The line joins the current models no other beats on both price and Arena Text score; hover any point to name it.
Quality against price: the data
| Model | Provider | Blended price per 1M tokens | Arena Text (Elo) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini 4 Carbon | $4 | 1,526 | |
| Gemini 4 Argon | $4 | 1,522 | |
| Muse Wonder | Meta | $8 | 1,511 |
| Claude Opus 5.5 | Anthropic | $8 | 1,506 |
| Gemini 3.8 Flash | $1.50 | 1,497 | |
| Muse Spark 1.3 | Meta | $2 | 1,496 |
| Kimi K3 | Moonshot Kimi | $6 | 1,487 |
| GPT-5.6 Sol | OpenAI | $8 | 1,485 |
| Qwen3.8-Max | Alibaba Qwen | $3 | 1,484 |
| Gemini 3.6 Flash | $3 | 1,483 | |
| GLM-5.3 | Z.ai | $2.15 | 1,483 |
| GPT-6.1 Sol | OpenAI | $4 | 1,482 |
| GPT-5.5 | OpenAI | $11 | 1,481 |
| MiMo-V2.6-Pro | Xiaomi MiMo | $0.54 | 1,480 |
| GPT-5.4 | OpenAI | $5.63 | 1,475 |
| DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash | DeepSeek | $0.52 | 1,475 |
| GPT-6 Astra | OpenAI | $20 | 1,474 |
| GLM-5.3-Flash | Z.ai | $0.24 | 1,474 |
| Gemini 3 Flash Preview | $1.13 | 1,473 | |
| Grok 4.20 | xAI | $1.56 | 1,472 |
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Anthropic | $4 | 1,472 |
| GPT-5.6 Terra | OpenAI | $4.50 | 1,468 |
| Grok 4.5 | xAI | $3 | 1,466 |
| DeepSeek-V4-Pro | DeepSeek | $1.98 | 1,464 |
| GPT-6 Sol | OpenAI | $4 | 1,457 |
| Grok 4.6 | xAI | $3 | 1,456 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | $0.85 | 1,455 | |
| GPT-5.6 Luna | OpenAI | $0.45 | 1,453 |
| MiMo-V2.6-Flash | Xiaomi MiMo | $0.18 | 1,448 |
| Step 5 Preview | StepFun | $1.43 | 1,448 |
| Grok 4.3 | xAI | $1.56 | 1,442 |
| Grok 4.7 | xAI | $3 | 1,442 |
| GPT-6 Luna | OpenAI | $0.20 | 1,441 |
| Mistral Large 4 | Mistral AI | $1.05 | 1,423 |
| Claude Haiku 5.5 | Anthropic | $0.20 | 1,422 |
| GPT-4.1 | OpenAI | $3.50 | 1,415 |
| Inkling 2 Small | Thinking Machines Lab | $0.47 | 1,412 |
| Solar Pro 4 | Upstage | $0.52 | 1,387 |
| GPT-4.1 mini | OpenAI | $0.70 | 1,383 |
| GPT-4.1 nano | OpenAI | $0.18 | 1,322 |
Cost
What each costs
Example workloads at each provider's listed rates, then every other rate either one lists. The cheaper figure in each row is highlighted.
The same work, priced
For 10M input and 2M output tokens, ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview costs 1.0 times as much as Inkling 2 Small, at each provider's listed rates.
10M input and 2M output tokens
ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview costs 1.0× as much
- ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview
- $5.06
- Inkling 2 Small
- $5
The same, with 9M of the input tokens cached
ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview costs 1.1× as much
- ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview
- $2.79
- Inkling 2 Small
- $2.57
| Workload or rate | ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview | Inkling 2 Small |
|---|---|---|
| Example workloads | ||
| 10M input and 2M output tokens | $5.06 | $5 (better) |
| The same, with 9M of the input tokens cached | $2.79 | $2.57 (better) |
| Other listed rates | ||
| 1M input tokens, cached | $0.028 (better) | $0.03 |
Your own bill will differ. These figures use list prices and example workloads. The AI Model Cost Audit reviews your real usage, shortlists models that score as well for each task for less, and estimates the savings.
Launch price $100, regular price $150
Verdict
When to choose each
ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview
Where it leads
- Lower price per 1M input tokens, $0.28 vs $0.30
- Larger context window 1,000,000 vs 262,144 tokens
- Cheaper cached input, $0.028 vs $0.03 per 1M tokens
Best for
- Low-cost agents for spreadsheets, office documents and tool calls over MCP, where text input is enough
- Long-horizon coding and game or 3D scene building inside an agent harness, at a Flash-tier price
Watch out for
- A preview, served only through Baidu Qianfan: Baidu says the weights will be open-sourced under Apache 2.0 soon, but they are not out yet
- Text only: it cannot read images, and in Baidu tests that needed vision a tool running Claude Opus 5.5 described the screen for it
- In Baidu's own table it trails Hy4 on APEX-Agents 1.1 (64.2% against 75.0%) and DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash on DeepSWE v1.1 (71.2% against 77.0%), and stays far behind GPT-6.1 Sol and Claude Opus 5.5 on Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (21.0% against 57.0% and 63.3%)
- Epoch AI and Arena have not scored it yet
Inkling 2 Small
Where it leads
- Lower price per 1M output tokens, $1 vs $1.13
- Lower cost for 10M input and 2M output tokens, $5 vs $5.06
- Accepts image input
Best for
- Agentic coding and office, finance and legal work at a low per-token price
- Teams that want to post-train their own variant on Tinker
Watch out for
- Closed weights for now: Thinking Machines said it would publish the full weights under Apache 2.0 the week after launch, once external safety testing ends; they were not out on November 10, 2026, so Tinker is the only first-party way to use it
- Tinker serves it with a 64K or 256K context, although the model card lists up to 1M tokens
- In its lab's own table DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash scores higher on DeepSWE v1.1 (77.0% against 72.1%) and Claude Haiku 5.5 on Vibe Code Bench (90.4% against 81.6%); Thinking Machines also says it is less tuned for chat, and Arena's ratings rest on 2,668 text votes so far
From benchmark to production
Building on ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview or Inkling 2 Small?
Public scores rarely hold on your own data. We test both models on your real tasks, then build the agent or pipeline around the one that wins.
AI Model Cost AuditLaunch price $100, regular price $150What the audit includes
FAQ
ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview vs Inkling 2 Small FAQ
Which is cheaper, ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview or Inkling 2 Small?
ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview is 7% cheaper per 1M input tokens than Inkling 2 Small, $0.28 vs $0.30. For 10M input and 2M output tokens, ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview costs $5.06 and Inkling 2 Small $5 at standard rates.
Which is cheaper with prompt caching, ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview or Inkling 2 Small?
ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview charges $0.028 per 1M cached input tokens, 90% below its standard input rate, and Inkling 2 Small $0.03, 90% below. With 9M of 10M input tokens cached and 2M output tokens, ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview costs $2.79 and Inkling 2 Small $2.57.
Which has the larger context window, ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview or Inkling 2 Small?
ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview has the larger context window, 1,000,000 vs 262,144 tokens.
How do ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview and Inkling 2 Small differ in features?
ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview takes text input; Inkling 2 Small takes text and image.
Further reading
More on ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview and Inkling 2 Small
Related comparisons
- DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash vs ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview
- Claude Haiku 5.5 vs Inkling 2 Small
- ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview vs Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite
- DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash vs Inkling 2 Small
- ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview vs GLM-5.3
- Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite vs Inkling 2 Small
- ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview vs GLM-5.3-Flash
- Gemini 3.8 Flash vs Inkling 2 Small
- ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview vs Hy4
- GLM-5.3-Flash vs Inkling 2 Small
- ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview vs LongCat-2.5
- GLM-5.3 vs Inkling 2 Small
Production evaluation
Choosing between ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview and Inkling 2 Small?
Public benchmarks narrow the shortlist. We run both on your own tasks, data and cost limits, then build the routing and review controls to run the winner in production.
- A head-to-head evaluation on your real workload
- Routing between models by cost and difficulty