GLM-5.3-Flash vs Mercury 2
Which is better for the money: GLM-5.3-Flash by Z AI 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
GLM-5.3-Flash scores 31.0 points higher (41.8 vs 10.8) but costs 2.9× as much to run the benchmark ($306 vs $105; both mid-range class). Pick GLM-5.3-Flash when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Mercury 2.
| Metric | GLM-5.3-Flash | Mercury 2 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.8 | 10.8 | −74.2% Mercury 2 is 74.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $305.52 | $104.94 | −65.7% Mercury 2 is 65.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 39.33s | 8.08s | −79.5% Mercury 2 is 79.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.15 / $0.50 | $0.25 / $0.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Mercury 2 vs GLM-5.3-Flash: 74.2% less intelligence, 65.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 79.5% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- GLM-5.3-Flash is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
- Mercury 2 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) scores 37.80 for $94.1.
GLM-5.3-FlashMercury 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/glm-5-3-flash/mercury-2 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/glm-5-3-flash/mercury-2?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill