DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (High) vs Mercury 2
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (High) by DeepSeek 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
DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (High) scores 13.6 points higher (24.4 vs 10.8) but costs 1.2× as much to run the benchmark ($121 vs $105; both mid-range class). Pick DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (High) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Mercury 2.
| Metric | DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (High) | Mercury 2 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 24.4 | 10.8 | −55.7% Mercury 2 is 55.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $121.20 | $104.94 | −13.4% Mercury 2 is 13.4% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | Not reported | 6.56s | — not comparable |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.11 / $0.23 | $0.25 / $0.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text |
Mercury 2 vs DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (High): 55.7% less intelligence, 13.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and end-to-end time not fully reported.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Flash scores 37.90 for $110.
- Mercury 2 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) scores 37.80 for $94.1.
DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (High)Mercury 2Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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