Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) vs Mercury 2.5
Which is better for the money: Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) by Anthropic or Mercury 2.5 by Inception? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) scores 8.4 points higher (20.7 vs 12.3) but costs 6.9× as much to run the benchmark ($1501 vs $218; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 12.3, and Mercury 2.5 when 12.3 is enough.
| Metric | Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) | Mercury 2.5 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 20.7 | 12.3 | −40.6% Mercury 2.5 is 40.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,501.22 | $218.11 | −85.5% Mercury 2.5 is 85.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 21.58s | 4.24s | −80.4% Mercury 2.5 is 80.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $3.00 / $15.0 | $0.25 / $0.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Mercury 2.5 vs Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning): 40.6% less intelligence, 85.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 80.4% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Mercury 2.5 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning)Mercury 2.5Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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