Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite vs Mercury 2.5
Which is better for the money: Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite by Google or Mercury 2.5 by Inception? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
Mercury 2.5 vs Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite: 21.2% less intelligence, 39.9% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 30.3% faster end-to-end.
| Metric | Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite | Mercury 2.5 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 15.6 | 12.3 | −21.2% Mercury 2.5 is 21.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $155.87 | $218.11 | +39.9% Mercury 2.5 is 39.9% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 6.08s | 4.24s | −30.3% Mercury 2.5 is 30.3% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $1.50 | $0.25 / $0.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text |
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 2.5 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Gemini 3.1 Flash-LiteMercury 2.5Today'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-2-5 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gemini-3-1-flash-lite-preview/mercury-2-5?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill