Celeris-1 vs Mercury 2.5
Which is better for the money: Celeris-1 by Celeris or Mercury 2.5 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 2.5 scores 6.0 points higher (12.3 vs 6.3) but costs 3.6× as much to run the benchmark ($218 vs $60.0; both mid-range class). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Mercury 2.5 when you need intelligence above 6.3, and Celeris-1 when 6.3 is enough.
| Metric | Celeris-1 | Mercury 2.5 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 6.3 | 12.3 | +95.2% Mercury 2.5 is 95.2% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $59.99 | $218.11 | +263.6% Mercury 2.5 is 3.6× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 0.87s | 4.39s | +404.6% Mercury 2.5 is 404.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.20 / $0.70 | $0.25 / $0.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Mercury 2.5 vs Celeris-1: 95.2% more intelligence, 263.6% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 404.6% 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 2.5 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Celeris-1Mercury 2.5Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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