Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) vs Mercury 2
Which is better for the money: Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) by Anthropic or Mercury 2 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 Haiku 5.5 (Max) scores 32.6 points higher (43.4 vs 10.8) but costs 3.1× as much to run the benchmark ($330 vs $105; both mid-range class). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) when you need intelligence above 10.8, and Mercury 2 when 10.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) | Mercury 2 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 43.4 | 10.8 | −75.1% Mercury 2 is 75.1% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $330.25 | $104.94 | −68.2% Mercury 2 is 68.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 324.30s | 6.56s | −98.0% Mercury 2 is 98.0% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.10 / $0.50 | $0.25 / $0.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Mercury 2 vs Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max): 75.1% less intelligence, 68.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 98.0% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
- Mercury 2 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) scores 37.80 for $94.1.
Claude Haiku 5.5 (Max)Mercury 2Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-haiku-5-5/mercury-2 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-haiku-5-5/mercury-2?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill