Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) vs Mercury 2
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 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 Sonnet 5 (Max) scores 27.4 points higher (38.2 vs 10.8) but costs 67× as much to run the benchmark ($6998 vs $105; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) when you need intelligence above 10.8, and Mercury 2 when 10.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) | Mercury 2 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 38.2 | 10.8 | −71.7% Mercury 2 is 71.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,998.25 | $104.94 | −98.5% Mercury 2 is 98.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 184.22s | 6.65s | −96.4% Mercury 2 is 96.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.25 / $0.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Mercury 2 vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Max): 71.7% less intelligence, 98.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 96.4% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Mercury 2 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) scores 37.80 for $94.1.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Max)Mercury 2Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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