Recursive lists 1 models and Thinkingmachines 6. Below: line-up, price tiers, the cheapest model for each capability, and what each costs for five real workloads.
| Recursive | Thinkingmachines | |
|---|---|---|
| Models listed | 1 | 6 |
| Models with published pricing | 1 | 6 |
| Typical price (median, 3:1 blend per 1M) | n/a | $1.22 |
| Cheapest paid model | n/a | Thinking Machines: Inkling Small ($0.64) |
| Longest context | Recursive: Flint (free) (262K) | Thinking Machines: Inkling (free) (1.0M) |
| Free models | 1 | 2 |
| Newest model | Recursive: Flint (free) (2026-10-21) | 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) | Recursive | Thinkingmachines |
|---|---|---|
| Customer-support chatbot 50,000 conversations — each a 6-turn conversation | no suitable model | $57.75 with Thinking Machines: Inkling Small |
| RAG search over documents 20,000 questions — each a question answered from ~8 retrieved passages | no suitable model | $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 | no suitable model | $68.40 with Thinking Machines: Inkling Small |
| Batch summarisation 10,000 documents — each a 6,000-word report summarised to a page | no suitable model | $43.20 with Thinking Machines: Inkling Small |
| Long-document analysis 500 documents — each a 150-page contract or codebase read in one pass | no suitable model | $23.70 with Thinking Machines: Inkling Small |
| You need | Recursive | Thinkingmachines |
|---|---|---|
| Any model | none listed | Thinking Machines: Inkling Small ($0.64) |
| With tool calling | none listed | Thinking Machines: Inkling Small ($0.64) |
| With image input | none listed | Thinking Machines: Inkling Small ($0.64) |
| With reasoning mode | none listed | Thinking Machines: Inkling Small ($0.64) |
| 128K+ context | none listed | Thinking Machines: Inkling Small ($0.64) |
| 1M+ context | none listed | none listed |
| Model type | Recursive | Thinkingmachines |
|---|---|---|
| text+image+audio->text | 0 | 6 |
| text->text | 1 | 0 |
| Price per 1M (3:1 blend) | Recursive | Thinkingmachines |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 1 | 2 |
| Under $0.50 | 0 | 0 |
| $0.50 – $3 | 0 | 4 |
| $3 – $10 | 0 | 0 |
| $10 and up | 0 | 0 |
It depends on the job: Thinkingmachines offers the broader line-up (1 models vs 6), Thinkingmachines the longest context (1.0M tokens). The workload table above shows which wins for chat, RAG, agents, batch jobs and long documents.
Thinkingmachines: Recursive lists 1 models and Thinkingmachines lists 6.
Thinkingmachines: Recursive's longest is Recursive: Flint (free) at 262K tokens; Thinkingmachines's is Thinking Machines: Inkling (free) at 1.0M.
Recursive: 1 free model (e.g. Recursive: Flint (free)). Thinkingmachines: 2 free models (e.g. Thinking Machines: Inkling (free)).
Recursive: 0 of 1 models accept images. Thinkingmachines: 6 of 6.