Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Mercury 2.5
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Mercury 2.5 by Inception? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 45.3 points higher (57.6 vs 12.3) but costs 40× as much to run the benchmark ($8708 vs $218; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) when you need intelligence above 12.3, and Mercury 2.5 when 12.3 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | Mercury 2.5 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 57.6 | 12.3 | −78.6% Mercury 2.5 is 78.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $8,708.20 | $218.11 | −97.5% Mercury 2.5 is 97.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 626.13s | 4.39s | −99.3% Mercury 2.5 is 99.3% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.25 / $0.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Mercury 2.5 vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback): 78.6% less intelligence, 97.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 99.3% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Mercury 2.5 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback)Mercury 2.5Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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