Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite vs Mercury 2
Which is better for the money: Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite by Google 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
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite scores 4.8 points higher (15.6 vs 10.8) but costs 1.5× as much to run the benchmark ($156 vs $105; both mid-range class). Pick Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Mercury 2.
| Metric | Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite | Mercury 2 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 15.6 | 10.8 | −30.8% Mercury 2 is 30.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $155.87 | $104.94 | −32.7% Mercury 2 is 32.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 6.15s | 6.65s | +8.1% Mercury 2 is 8.1% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $1.50 | $0.25 / $0.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text |
Mercury 2 vs Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite: 30.8% less intelligence, 32.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 8.1% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite 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.
Gemini 3.1 Flash-LiteMercury 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/gemini-3-1-flash-lite-preview/mercury-2 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gemini-3-1-flash-lite-preview/mercury-2?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill