DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max) vs Mercury 2
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max) 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 (Max) scores 13.4 points higher (24.2 vs 10.8) but costs 1.4× as much to run the benchmark ($149 vs $105; both mid-range class). Pick DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Mercury 2.
| Metric | DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max) | Mercury 2 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 24.2 | 10.8 | −55.4% Mercury 2 is 55.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $149.48 | $104.94 | −29.8% Mercury 2 is 29.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 107.06s | 6.65s | −93.8% Mercury 2 is 93.8% faster |
| 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 (Max): 55.4% less intelligence, 29.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 93.8% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Max) scores 38.10 for $122.
- 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 (Max)Mercury 2Today'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-v4-flash-0420/mercury-2 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-v4-flash-0420/mercury-2?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill