Celeris-1 vs Mercury 2
Which is better for the money: Celeris-1 by Celeris or Mercury 2 by Inception? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Mercury 2 scores 4.5 points higher (10.8 vs 6.3) but costs 1.7× as much to run the benchmark ($105 vs $60.0; both mid-range class). Pick Mercury 2 when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Celeris-1.
| Metric | Celeris-1 | Mercury 2 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 6.3 | 10.8 | +71.4% Mercury 2 is 71.4% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $59.99 | $104.94 | +74.9% Mercury 2 is 74.9% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 0.87s | 8.08s | +828.7% Mercury 2 is 828.7% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.20 / $0.70 | $0.25 / $0.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Mercury 2 vs Celeris-1: 71.4% more intelligence, 74.9% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 828.7% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Celeris-1 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium) scores 34.50 for $56.4.
- Mercury 2 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) scores 37.80 for $94.1.
Celeris-1Mercury 2Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/celeris-1/mercury-2 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/celeris-1/mercury-2?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill