Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite vs Mercury 2.5
Which is better for the money: Gemini 3.5 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.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite scores 9.9 points higher (22.2 vs 12.3) but costs 1.7× as much to run the benchmark ($366 vs $218; both mid-range class). Pick Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Mercury 2.5.
| Metric | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | Mercury 2.5 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 22.2 | 12.3 | −44.6% Mercury 2.5 is 44.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $365.63 | $218.11 | −40.3% Mercury 2.5 is 40.3% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 8.69s | 4.33s | −50.2% Mercury 2.5 is 50.2% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.30 / $2.50 | $0.25 / $0.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text |
Mercury 2.5 vs Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite: 44.6% less intelligence, 40.3% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 50.2% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
- Mercury 2.5 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Gemini 3.5 Flash-LiteMercury 2.5Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/gemini-3-5-flash-lite/mercury-2-5 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gemini-3-5-flash-lite/mercury-2-5?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill