DeepSeek V3 0324 vs Mercury 2.5
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek V3 0324 by DeepSeek or Mercury 2.5 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
Mercury 2.5 scores 2.6 points higher (12.3 vs 9.7) but costs 11× as much to run the benchmark ($218 vs $19.9; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Mercury 2.5 when you need intelligence above 9.7, and DeepSeek V3 0324 when 9.7 is enough.
| Metric | DeepSeek V3 0324 | Mercury 2.5 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 9.7 | 12.3 | +26.8% Mercury 2.5 is 26.8% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $19.87 | $218.11 | +997.7% Mercury 2.5 is 11× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 4.38s | 4.24s | −3.2% Mercury 2.5 is 3.2% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.24 / $0.90 | $0.25 / $0.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text |
Mercury 2.5 vs DeepSeek V3 0324: 26.8% more intelligence, 997.7% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 3.2% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- DeepSeek V3 0324 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
- Mercury 2.5 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
DeepSeek V3 0324Mercury 2.5Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-v3-0324/mercury-2-5 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-v3-0324/mercury-2-5?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill