Particle Ai lists 1 models and Thinking Machines 6. Particle Ai is cheaper on a typical model ($0.44 per 1M tokens median). Below: line-up, price tiers, the cheapest model for each capability, and what each costs for five real workloads.
| Particle Ai | Thinking Machines | |
|---|---|---|
| Models listed | 1 | 6 |
| Models with published pricing | 1 | 6 |
| Typical price (median, 3:1 blend per 1M) | $0.44 | $1.22 |
| Cheapest paid model | Particle AI: Particle-1 ($0.44) | Thinking Machines: Inkling Small ($0.64) |
| Longest context | Particle AI: Particle-1 (1.0M) | Thinking Machines: Inkling (free) (1.0M) |
| Free models | 0 | 2 |
| Newest model | Particle AI: Particle-1 (2026-10-28) | Thinking Machines: Inkling Small (2026-07-30) |
| Price changes in the last 90 days | 0 | 8 |
For each workload: the cheapest model from each provider that can actually do it (fits the context window; tool calling required for the agent), and its monthly cost at list price.
| Workload (per month) | Particle Ai | Thinking Machines |
|---|---|---|
| Customer-support chatbot 50,000 conversations — each a 6-turn conversation | $38.75 with Particle AI: Particle-1 | $57.75 with Thinking Machines: Inkling Small |
| RAG search over documents 20,000 questions — each a question answered from ~8 retrieved passages | $40.00 with Particle AI: Particle-1 | $66.00 with Thinking Machines: Inkling Small |
| Coding / tool-using agent 2,000 tasks — each a multi-step task with tool calls and file context | $42.00 with Particle AI: Particle-1 | $68.40 with Thinking Machines: Inkling Small |
| Batch summarisation 10,000 documents — each a 6,000-word report summarised to a page | $26.00 with Particle AI: Particle-1 | $43.20 with Thinking Machines: Inkling Small |
| Long-document analysis 500 documents — each a 150-page contract or codebase read in one pass | $13.50 with Particle AI: Particle-1 | $23.70 with Thinking Machines: Inkling Small |
| You need | Particle Ai | Thinking Machines |
|---|---|---|
| Any model | Particle AI: Particle-1 ($0.44) | Thinking Machines: Inkling Small ($0.64) |
| With tool calling | Particle AI: Particle-1 ($0.44) | Thinking Machines: Inkling Small ($0.64) |
| With image input | Particle AI: Particle-1 ($0.44) | Thinking Machines: Inkling Small ($0.64) |
| With reasoning mode | Particle AI: Particle-1 ($0.44) | Thinking Machines: Inkling Small ($0.64) |
| 128K+ context | Particle AI: Particle-1 ($0.44) | Thinking Machines: Inkling Small ($0.64) |
| 1M+ context | Particle AI: Particle-1 ($0.44) | none listed |
| Model type | Particle Ai | Thinking Machines |
|---|---|---|
| text+image+audio->text | 0 | 6 |
| text+image->text | 1 | 0 |
| Price per 1M (3:1 blend) | Particle Ai | Thinking Machines |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 0 | 2 |
| Under $0.50 | 1 | 0 |
| $0.50 – $3 | 0 | 4 |
| $3 – $10 | 0 | 0 |
| $10 and up | 0 | 0 |
Particle Ai is cheaper on a typical model: a median of $0.44 per 1M tokens (3:1 input/output) against $1.22 for Thinking Machines. The cheapest paid models are Particle AI: Particle-1 at $0.44 and Thinking Machines: Inkling Small at $0.64.
It depends on the job: Thinking Machines offers the broader line-up (1 models vs 6), Particle Ai the lower typical price. The workload table above shows which wins for chat, RAG, agents, batch jobs and long documents.
Thinking Machines: Particle Ai lists 1 models and Thinking Machines lists 6.
It is a tie: Particle Ai's longest is Particle AI: Particle-1 at 1.0M tokens; Thinking Machines's is Thinking Machines: Inkling (free) at 1.0M.
Particle Ai: none. Thinking Machines: 2 free models (e.g. Thinking Machines: Inkling (free)).
Particle Ai: 1 of 1 models accept images. Thinking Machines: 6 of 6.