Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Mercury 2
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic 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
Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… scores 45.2 points higher (56.0 vs 10.8) but costs 39× as much to run the benchmark ($4057 vs $105; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… when you need intelligence above 10.8, and Mercury 2 when 10.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Mercury 2 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.0 | 10.8 | −80.7% Mercury 2 is 80.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,056.65 | $104.94 | −97.4% Mercury 2 is 97.4% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 123.06s | 8.08s | −93.4% Mercury 2 is 93.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.25 / $0.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Mercury 2 vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 80.7% less intelligence, 97.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 93.4% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Mercury 2 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) scores 37.80 for $94.1.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)Mercury 2Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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