text model comparison
Gemini 3.8 Flash vs Inkling 2 Small
Gemini 3.8 Flash and Inkling 2 Small are both current text models, from Google and Thinking Machines Lab. Inkling 2 Small is 60% cheaper per 1M input tokens than Gemini 3.8 Flash, $0.30 vs $0.75. In Thinking Machines Lab's Inkling 2 Small model card, Gemini 3.8 Flash scores 73.8% on DeepSWE v1.1 and Inkling 2 Small 72.1%. Gemini 3.8 Flash has the larger context window, 1,048,576 vs 262,144 tokens.
- Lower price per 1M input tokens
- Inkling 2 Small$0.30 against $0.75
- Longer context window
- Gemini 3.8 Flash1.05M tokens against 262K tokens
- Newer release
- Inkling 2 SmallNov 2026 against Sep 2026
Data verified November 6, 2026 · Dataset 2026-11-06
Side by side
Gemini 3.8 Flash 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 | Gemini 3.8 Flash | Inkling 2 Small |
|---|---|---|
| Price | ||
| Price per 1M input tokens | $0.75 | $0.30 (better) |
| Price per 1M output tokens | $3.75 | $1 (better) |
| Independent benchmarks | ||
| Arena Text | 1496 Elo (#7 of 52) | Not measured |
| Arena WebDev | 1583 Elo (#26 of 46) | Not measured |
| GPQA Diamond | 95.4% (#4 of 41) | Not measured |
| FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2) | 68.4% (#26 of 41) | Not measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 69.7% (#8 of 38) | Not measured |
| Specs | ||
| Provider | Thinking Machines Lab | |
| Release date | September 2, 2026 | November 5, 2026 |
| Access | API only | API only |
| Context window | 1,048,576 tokens | 262,144 tokens |
| Max output | 65,536 tokens | Not reported |
| Input | text, image, audio, video | text, image |
| Output | text | text |
No independent benchmark has scored both models yet. Each rank counts the current models scored on that benchmark.
Provider results
What the labs report
Results tables a lab published with one of its models, where it lists both Gemini 3.8 Flash and Inkling 2 Small. These are the lab's own figures, not independent measurements, and each table is read on its own: labs run benchmarks with different harnesses and budgets.
Thinking Machines Lab, Inkling 2 Small model card, November 5, 2026Thinking Machines Lab · 2026-11-06
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.8 Flash | Inkling 2 Small |
|---|---|---|
| DeepSWE v1.1 | 73.8% (better) | 72.1% |
| Vibe Code Bench v1.1 | 78.7% | 81.6% (better) |
| Sudo L7 | 10.6% | 14.1% (better) |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | 85.8% (better) | 81.2% |
| SWE-bench Multimodal v2 | 40.8% | 43.1% (better) |
| SWE-bench Pro v2hard set | 58.8% | 86.3% (better) |
| SWE-bench Pro v2full set | 94.9% | 97.7% (better) |
| SWE-bench Verified | 80.0% | 82.2% (better) |
| BioMysteryBench | 62.2% | 70.0% (better) |
| MCP Atlaspublic set | 87.5% (better) | 85.0% |
| EnterpriseBench-CoreCraft | 58.5% | 71.8% (better) |
| Finance Agent v2.1 | 65.8% | 67.5% (better) |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark v1.1 | 72.9% (better) | 69.5% |
| Tax Agent Bench | 66.8% (better) | 65.8% |
| APEX-Accounting v1.1pass@1 | 15.5% (better) | 14.5% |
| APEX-Accounting v1.1mean score | 58.8% | 62.0% (better) |
| Diligence Benchbest harness | 51.1% | 58.1% (better) |
| Harvey LAB v1.1 | 12.1% | 21.7% (better) |
| Legal Research Bench | 38.9% | 46.6% (better) |
| CharXiv (RQ) | 86.2% (better) | 85.6% |
| CharXiv (RQ)with Python | 92.1% (better) | 87.7% |
| Chartography | 40.9% (better) | 36.7% |
| Chartographywith Python | 82.0% (better) | 80.4% |
| SAGE v1.1 | 88.2% | 88.6% (better) |
| GPQA-Diamond | 95.3% (better) | 93.0% |
| LongBench v2 | 73.7% (better) | 70.6% |
| ComplexConstraints v1.0 | 48.4% (better) | 44.5% |
| CyberBench v1.1 | 43.8% | 72.7% (better) |
Thinking Machines' table from the Inkling 2 Small model card, run at effort 0.99 (xhigh) with a 1M-token trajectory limit; where a benchmark's owner publishes scores (Datacurve, Scale AI, Surge, Mercor, Thoughtful, Vals), Thinking Machines uses them. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash is the 1017 build. Left out here: the Artificial Analysis and Vals indexes, the rows Artificial Analysis ran (FrontierCode, Terminal-Bench, GDP.pdf, MMMU-Pro, HLE, CritPt, AA-LCR, AA-Omniscience, AutomationBench, EnterpriseOps-Gym, Tau 3 Banking), Arena and DesignArena ratings, PMPP-Hard (not a percentage), the safety rows, and JobBench, DAYJOB and Humanity's Sixth Sense, which we could not confirm are public.
Charts
Against every current text model
Where Gemini 3.8 Flash 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 Gemini 3.8 Flash has a current Arena Text score: #7 of 52. Each bar is the share of current models it beats.
Independent benchmarks
Arena Text
Gemini 3.8 Flash:#7of 52
1,496 Elo · ahead of 88%
Inkling 2 Small: Not scored
Arena WebDev
Gemini 3.8 Flash:#26of 46
1,583 Elo · ahead of 44%
Inkling 2 Small: Not scored
GPQA Diamond
Gemini 3.8 Flash:#4of 41
95.4% · ahead of 90%
Inkling 2 Small: Not scored
FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2)
Gemini 3.8 Flash:#26of 41
68.4% · ahead of 38%
Inkling 2 Small: Not scored
SimpleQA Verified
Gemini 3.8 Flash:#8of 38
69.7% · ahead of 78%
Inkling 2 Small: Not scored
Price and context
Price per 1M input tokens
Gemini 3.8 Flash:#21of 58
$0.75 · cheaper than 65%
Inkling 2 Small:#11of 58
$0.30 · cheaper than 75%
Price per 1M output tokens
Gemini 3.8 Flash:#25of 58
$3.75 · cheaper than 58%
Inkling 2 Small:#10of 58
$1 · cheaper than 84%
Context window
Gemini 3.8 Flash:#12of 67
1.05M tokens · longer than 67%
Inkling 2 Small:#57of 67
262K tokens · longer than 12%
Quality against price
Gemini 3.8 Flash scores 1,496 at $1.50 (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 | 1,528 | |
| Gemini 4 Argon | $4 | 1,520 | |
| Claude Opus 5.5 | Anthropic | $8 | 1,509 |
| Muse Wonder | Meta | $8 | 1,507 |
| Claude Fable 5 | Anthropic | $20 | 1,504 |
| Claude Fable 5.1 | Anthropic | $20 | 1,504 |
| Gemini 3.8 Flash | $1.50 | 1,496 | |
| Muse Spark 1.3 | Meta | $2 | 1,495 |
| Claude Opus 5 | Anthropic | $10 | 1,492 |
| Kimi K3 | Moonshot Kimi | $6 | 1,488 |
| GPT-5.6 Sol | OpenAI | $8 | 1,485 |
| Gemini 3.6 Flash | $3 | 1,483 | |
| GPT-5.5 | OpenAI | $11 | 1,482 |
| Claude Opus 4.8 | Anthropic | $10 | 1,482 |
| Qwen3.8-Max | Alibaba Qwen | $3 | 1,482 |
| GPT-6.1 Sol | OpenAI | $4 | 1,481 |
| GLM-5.3 | Z.ai | $2.15 | 1,481 |
| MiMo-V2.6-Pro | Xiaomi MiMo | $0.54 | 1,480 |
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Anthropic | $4 | 1,477 |
| GLM-5.3-Flash | Z.ai | $0.24 | 1,477 |
| GPT-6 Astra | OpenAI | $20 | 1,476 |
| DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash | DeepSeek | $0.52 | 1,476 |
| GPT-5.4 | OpenAI | $5.63 | 1,475 |
| Gemini 3 Flash Preview | $1.13 | 1,473 | |
| Grok 4.20 | xAI | $1.56 | 1,472 |
| GPT-5.6 Terra | OpenAI | $4.50 | 1,467 |
| Grok 4.5 | xAI | $3 | 1,465 |
| DeepSeek-V4-Pro | DeepSeek | $1.98 | 1,465 |
| Claude Sonnet 5 | Anthropic | $4 | 1,462 |
| GPT-6 Sol | OpenAI | $4 | 1,458 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | $0.85 | 1,456 | |
| Grok 4.6 | xAI | $3 | 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 |
| GPT-6 Luna | OpenAI | $0.20 | 1,441 |
| Grok 4.7 | xAI | $3 | 1,441 |
| Mistral Large 4 | Mistral AI | $1.05 | 1,432 |
| Claude Haiku 5.5 | Anthropic | $0.20 | 1,425 |
| GPT-4.1 | OpenAI | $3.50 | 1,415 |
| Solar Pro 4 | Upstage | $0.52 | 1,388 |
| 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, Gemini 3.8 Flash costs 3.0 times as much as Inkling 2 Small, at each provider's listed rates.
10M input and 2M output tokens
Gemini 3.8 Flash costs 3.0× as much
- Gemini 3.8 Flash
- $15
- Inkling 2 Small
- $5
The same, with 9M of the input tokens cached
Gemini 3.8 Flash costs 3.5× as much
- Gemini 3.8 Flash
- $8.93
- Inkling 2 Small
- $2.57
| Workload or rate | Gemini 3.8 Flash | Inkling 2 Small |
|---|---|---|
| Example workloads | ||
| 10M input and 2M output tokens | $15 | $5 (better) |
| The same, with 9M of the input tokens cached | $8.93 | $2.57 (better) |
| The same, through the batch API | $7.50 | Not listed |
| Other listed rates | ||
| 1M input tokens, cached | $0.075 | $0.03 (better) |
| 1M input tokens, batch | $0.375 | Not listed |
| 1M output tokens, batch | $1.875 | Not listed |
| 1M input tokens, priority | $1.35 | Not listed |
| 1M output tokens, priority | $6.75 | Not listed |
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
Gemini 3.8 Flash
Where it leads
- Larger context window 1,048,576 vs 262,144 tokens
- Accepts audio and video input
- Batch pricing, $0.375 input and $1.875 output per 1M tokens
Best for
- High-volume agentic and coding workloads where per-token cost dominates the decision
- Multimodal pipelines that need audio, video and PDF input in one model
Watch out for
- The listed price is promotional and ends 31 December 2026; on 1 January 2027 input and output both double, to $1.50 and $7.50, and cached input goes from $0.075 to $0.15
- Output pricing is billed inclusive of thinking tokens, so reasoning-heavy prompts cost more than the output length suggests
- Google’s published comparisons are against its own previous Flash release and were not independently reproduced here
Inkling 2 Small
Where it leads
- Lower input and output prices, $0.30 and $1 vs $0.75 and $3.75 per 1M tokens
- Cheaper cached input, $0.03 vs $0.075 per 1M tokens
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 says it will publish the full weights under Apache 2.0 the week after launch, once external safety testing ends; until then Tinker is the only 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 no independent benchmark score is recorded here yet
From benchmark to production
Building on Gemini 3.8 Flash 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
Gemini 3.8 Flash vs Inkling 2 Small FAQ
Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.8 Flash or Inkling 2 Small?
Inkling 2 Small is 60% cheaper per 1M input tokens than Gemini 3.8 Flash, $0.30 vs $0.75. For 10M input and 2M output tokens, Gemini 3.8 Flash costs $15 and Inkling 2 Small $5 at standard rates.
Which is cheaper with prompt caching, Gemini 3.8 Flash or Inkling 2 Small?
Gemini 3.8 Flash charges $0.075 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, Gemini 3.8 Flash costs $8.93 and Inkling 2 Small $2.57.
How do Gemini 3.8 Flash and Inkling 2 Small compare in Thinking Machines Lab's own results?
In the Inkling 2 Small model card (November 5, 2026), Gemini 3.8 Flash leads on DeepSWE v1.1, 73.8% to 72.1%; Inkling 2 Small leads on Vibe Code Bench v1.1, 81.6% to 78.7%; Inkling 2 Small leads on Sudo L7, 14.1% to 10.6%. These are Thinking Machines Lab's figures, not independent measurements.
Which has the larger context window, Gemini 3.8 Flash or Inkling 2 Small?
Gemini 3.8 Flash has the larger context window, 1,048,576 vs 262,144 tokens.
How do Gemini 3.8 Flash and Inkling 2 Small differ in features?
Gemini 3.8 Flash takes text, image, audio and video input; Inkling 2 Small takes text and image.
Further reading
More on Gemini 3.8 Flash and Inkling 2 Small
Articles on Gemini 3.8 Flash and Inkling 2 Small
- Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS: Price, Rankings and the Fine PrintSeptember 25, 2026
Related comparisons
- Claude Haiku 5.5 vs Gemini 3.8 Flash
- Claude Haiku 5.5 vs Inkling 2 Small
- Gemini 3.8 Flash vs Gemini 4 Argon
- DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash vs Inkling 2 Small
- Gemini 3.8 Flash vs GPT-6.1 Sol
- Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite vs Inkling 2 Small
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Gemini 3.8 Flash
- GLM-5.3-Flash vs Inkling 2 Small
- Claude Opus 5.5 vs Gemini 3.8 Flash
- GLM-5.3 vs Inkling 2 Small
- DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash vs Gemini 3.8 Flash
- GPT-6 Luna vs Inkling 2 Small
Production evaluation
Choosing between Gemini 3.8 Flash 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