Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) vs Mercury 2
Which is better for the money: Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) by Google or Mercury 2 by Inception? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Mercury 2 scores 1.9 points higher (10.8 vs 8.9) but costs 7.1× as much to run the benchmark ($105 vs $14.7; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Mercury 2 when you need intelligence above 8.9, and Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) when 8.9 is enough.
| Metric | Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) | Mercury 2 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 8.9 | 10.8 | +21.3% Mercury 2 is 21.3% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $14.68 | $104.94 | +614.9% Mercury 2 is 7.1× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 57.75s | 8.08s | −86.0% Mercury 2 is 86.0% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.02 / $0.10 | $0.25 / $0.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text |
Mercury 2 vs Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning): 21.3% more intelligence, 614.9% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 86.0% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
- Mercury 2 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) scores 37.80 for $94.1.
Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning)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/gemma-4-e4b/mercury-2 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gemma-4-e4b/mercury-2?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill