Claude Opus 5 (Medium) vs Mercury 2
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Medium) 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 (Medium) scores 34.0 points higher (44.8 vs 10.8) but costs 26× as much to run the benchmark ($2732 vs $105; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Medium) when you need intelligence above 10.8, and Mercury 2 when 10.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Medium) | Mercury 2 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 44.8 | 10.8 | −75.9% Mercury 2 is 75.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,731.91 | $104.94 | −96.2% Mercury 2 is 96.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 13.14s | 8.08s | −38.5% Mercury 2 is 38.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.25 / $0.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Mercury 2 vs Claude Opus 5 (Medium): 75.9% less intelligence, 96.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 38.5% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
- 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 (Medium)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-opus-5-medium/mercury-2 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-medium/mercury-2?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill